


Constructing Parallel Worlds

by Wayland Smithee (TheAstronomyMod)



Category: British Singers RPF, Radiohead (Band), Thom Yorke RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-19 20:37:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 119,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAstronomyMod/pseuds/Wayland%20Smithee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thom mistakenly agrees to an interview with a "Feminist Porn Magazine." Complications ensue. Sexy complications.</p>
<p>Advance notice, the ending is pretty grim, so consider yourselves warned.</p>
<p>Inspired by many, many Thom Yorke interviews I've read/watched on the internet, this is an attempt to construct a kind of character-sketch of a quintessential "Thom Yorke Interview" - but also very clearly inspired by a specific interview where Thom had such chemistry - such specifically sexual chemistry - with the interviewer that I wanted to explore that, and answer the question "What if they acted on that...?"</p>
<p>This story also contains alternate lifestyles, frank discussion of Asexuality, consensual but very rough and sometimes violent sex, paganism, folk dancing, wife-swapping, cheese-eating vegans, and also lesbians. Do not read if offended by any of this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Denial

I was actually scared. Standing outside the posh hotel with a printout of the publicist's email in my hand and my tape recorder and camera in my bag, I still could not believe I had blagged the gig. It had been years since I'd interviewed an actual musician, and to be honest, many of the interviews I had done back in my days of music journalism had been email or phone interviews, cutting and pasting together questions and responses together from impersonal text documents or crackly Transatlantic phone calls. But still, my editor had assigned me the job, the publicist had consented to an interview, and most baffling of all, my interview subject had read my sample questions and said that he looked forward to it. If the three of them hadn't all had the confidence that I could actually do it, I wouldn't be here. And yet I still didn't quite believe that I could really do it.

I took out my phone to check one more time that I hadn't received some message canceling it, then checked the time - precisely fifteen minutes early, as per the request - then made my way into the lobby.

Handing the email printout to the woman at the checkout desk, I told her "I'm Fiona Ffordd, two Fs, two Ds, from Incandescent Magazine. I have an appointment with XL Records?"

I expected to have to show six forms of identification and a NUJ card, but she nodded efficiently, and moved towards the phone. "You're here for the interviews? Of course, we've had journalists in all day. I'll just ring up and let them know to expect you. Fifth floor. Suite 517."

My stomach did flip-flops in the lift, but I swallowed nervously, smiled at the other hotel guests, then stepped out into the quiet, lushly carpeted corridor, my footsteps totally muffled as I made my way down. I took a deep breath, then knocked on the door. Oh, phew, it was just the publicist's assistant, a chirpy young woman who had me sign some forms before going over to tap gently on a connecting door. "Just a minute, I'll just hurry things along with the other journalist. Make yourself at home, help yourself to tea, coffee. He'll be with you in a minute." She gestured towards a sideboard spread with tea and biscuits and nibbles.

I fussed with the contents of my bag, checked the batteries of my tape recorder one more time, dug through my notebook and went through my prepared interview questions one more time. Then, bored, I cast my eye over her laptop and the CDs spread over her desk, trying to work out what other artists she handled, but the screen had gone dark. Finally, I got up, walked over to the sideboard, made myself a cup of tea and tried to calm myself.

The publicist returned about ten minutes later, with a broadsheet journalist I knew only by name and a photo on his byline. Bloody hell, what was I doing here, after a writer as well-known as him? Catching sight of me, he winked and wished me good luck with what I swore was a slightly patronising tone. After she had disposed of the critic, the publicist stuck her head into the inner room, then nodded towards me sharply.

"Your turn now," she announced jauntily, then stood aside to let me in. "Let me know if you need anything, I'll be back in half an hour to let you know when your time's nearly up."

I stepped into the room like I was stepping into a trap, every sense sharpened, every nerve jangling with nerves, but it was just another posh hotel room, though slightly bigger and more minimal than the first, in that very clean, very polished way that made you realise exactly how expensive it all was.

At first I thought the room was empty, and glanced around looking for an exit. Two beds, both huge, superking size, but beyond that a raised step leading to a small sitting area, where two leather sofas faced each other, with an incredible view down upper Regent Street towards the park. And then I saw him, sitting not on either of the sofas, but perched on the windowsill, his back to me, his nose pressed up against the glass, giving me time to examine him as I walked towards him, silent on the plush carpet. His clothes, much like the room, managed to give off an aura of understated yet expensive elegance, Japanese jeans, a loose, flowing linen shirt in an unbleached, natural colour, with a bracken-coloured tailored tweed waistcoat over the top. Only the thicket of his longish hair seemed out of place, a tangled bush somewhere between dark blond and light brown, half standing on end, half lying in uneven tufts, like a thatched roof. I crossed the floor undetected, but he turned as I mounted the steps. For a moment I was unnerved by his seeming sixth sense, then realised he could see my reflection in the glass.

"Hi," I ventured, extending my hand with what I hoped was a confident smile. "I'm Fiona Ffordd, from Incandescent Magazine."

He stood up and extended his own hand, shaking mine cautiously as I tried not to stare. "I'm Thom," he replied, in a low, carefully controlled voice, and I had to stop myself from retorting 'yeah, I know.' He was shorter than I had expected. I had never thought that he was tall, but he was actually tiny, almost disproportionately so, that weird, oversized lollipop head that famous people often seemed to have, on top of shoulders that seemed slightly too broad for his height, then slim hips and diminutive legs that even the well tailored Japanese jeans could not lengthen. But he was beautiful, in a slightly elven way, high cheekbones, and perfect, porcelain nose, dusted lightly with freckles, over full, pouting lips that seemed almost bruised, the sort of soft, plump that looked as if he'd recently either been fighting or been roughly kissed.

He was much quieter than I'd expected, too, studying me carefully as he folded himself into one of the sofas, gesturing for me to take the other. It was his eyes that were the most physically striking thing about him, though, both the same deep, electric shade of blue, but one was opened slightly too wide, the other half closed, permanently drooping, turning his gaze slightly inwards, so that when he smiled, he seemed to have a wistful, self-reflective bedroom stare, but when he frowned, his face took on a cynical, sneering air of condescension.

"Incandescent," he finally repeated as I started to dig in my bag for my tape recorder. His voice was quite soft, and rather high in pitch, so I turned the record volume up to try and compensate. "I hadn't heard of it before. Is it at all like Next Step Sounds was?"

"Like Next Step?" I asked, surprised. What on earth was he asking about Next Step Magazine for? Oh wait, no, I had put down my tenure as a staff music writer there as part of my CV in my interview request. It was still a title that opened doors, among people that cared passionately about music. "No, not at all."

"That's a shame. I used to have a subscription to Next Step, I really liked it. I thought you lot had a lot of integrity. It was a shame when it folded. Mind you, I was always slightly piqued you never wanted to interview us. But... oh well, I suppose your editor always hated us. Right from the start, when he thought we were a fake grunge band, full of toffs from Oxford."

"Well, I don't think you were exactly our... size. We were a little independent magazine, it's not like you needed the coverage," I replied.

"You're being rather diplomatic. You writers slagged us off all the time, called us the antithetical opposite of everything you believed in, on many occasions. I'm surprised you're doing the interview to be honest, didn't you have to sign a contract saying you hated my band to work there?" His playful half smile, half fixed sneer made it quite hard to tell if he was joking.

"Oh, we weren't so bad. The editor's bark was always worse than his bite. You had to learn how to handle him. Usually shout right back, he'd respect you for that. I was forever sneaking things in over or under his radar, I used to write articles just to wind him up. He was quite sweet, though, really. He'd email me and beg me to write something, and then I'd bash something out about Busted or some bubblegum band like that, but pitch it in the sort of style he found irresistible, and make my case with such passion and conviction that he couldn't turn it down. In the face of all that ingrained indie snobbery, it became my little act of subversion to write about completely commercial bubblegum pop." I didn't know why I was explaining myself at such length, given I was the interviewer and he the subject. Perhaps it was nerves, considering how long I'd been out of the music journalism game, or perhaps his mocking attitude already had me on the defensive. Knock it off, Fiona, you're the interviewer. He's supposed to impress you, not the other way around.

He cackled softly. "I remember that piece, I couldn't decide if it was taking the piss or not. But that was the kind of attitude that made me sad when it went out of business. Incredibly irreverent articles about rock's holy cows, then really quite deep and penetrating - and passionate - writing about stuff anyone else would have written off." Picking a bottle of water off the table, he sucked on it thoughtfully. "So what's this new rag, then? Something about Feminist thought? Is there really a feminist music magazine, in Britain?"

Shit. I swallowed nervously, rearranging my notepad and my tape recorder on the table between us. If he hadn't fully grasped the nature of the organ I was writing for, this was going to be more than slightly awkward. "It's not a feminist music magazine. It's the music issue of... well, a, erm, feminist... porn magazine."

Choking on his water bottle, he sprayed water across the front of his crisp linen shirt as he sputtered "A what?"

"A feminist porn magazine," I repeated. "It features political, philosophical and topical articles, alongside erotic stories and, erm, pictures of naked men."

"Feminist porn magazine?" he echoed, attempting to brush drops of water off his shirt. "How does that work, then? I thought Feminists were against pornography, I thought that was part of the deal."

It was almost a reflex reaction, the way I ploughed immediately into the explanation. "Well, Radical Feminists tend to be against pornography, they see it as objectification and exploitation. But there's another way of thinking called Sex Positive Feminism which, well... We see erotic writing and imagery as a perfectly natural expression of sexuality. That the problem with Porn is not the sexual imagery, but the fact that you only ever see it from one side - the Male Gaze, and we reckon that opening it up to the Female Gaze will make it less objectifying." I glanced over at him defensively, worrying how he would take the whole statement of intent, but he actually had his head cocked to one side as if he was listening carefully, so I carried on as if trying to sell him on our idea. "And also the idea that the exploitative nature of porn comes from the commodification of sexuality, rather than being inherent in all sexual imagery. Because there's nothing inherently wrong with sex or nudity - that's all a hangover from Christian dualism. And then it draws deeply from Marxist Feminism, anti-Capitalist thought, in saying that it's Capitalism driving the exploitation of women through pornography." His ears seemed to prick up at the mention of anti-Capitalism, his eyes flashing with interest. "And you know, the obvious Marxist answer to that is, give women the means of production. The answer isn't banning porn, but creating better porn - more egalitarian, less exploitative, more gender balanced..."

"You do not expect me to take my clothes off, do you?" he interrupted, abandoning his shoes on the floor and drawing up his feet onto the sofa so that he was sitting curled in a defensive ball. His face was twisted with conflicting emotions - I'd clearly piqued his interest with the political angle, but he still had that look of sheer schoolboy terror at the idea of disrobing.

"Good lord, no. Not unless you want to, of course..." I smiled what I hoped was a disarming smile to show that I was joking, but his expression became even more alarmed.

Suddenly, he uncurled like a spring, and leapt up from the sofa, pacing back and forth between the chair and the window, tugging at his hair until it stood up in tufts on the back of his head. "Listen, I'm sorry, I don't know how I feel about this. I didn't realise..."

"I didn't know you didn't realise. I was perfectly honest in my pitch. Did you not read it all the way through?" This was just not fair. My scalp prickled with annoyance. After all the effort, and the nerves, and everything it'd taken to get me here, I was not going to give up.

"I honestly did not see anything about the porn bit. This is just not on. We have principles! There are certain things we would not do. Like... Playboy have asked to interview us a dozen times, and we've always said no, because we disliked their politics and we think they're exploitative of women. Hugh Hefner - or some Saudi prince of... of... some regime where women are not even allowed to drive a car - they ask us to do a private gig for X hundred thousand pounds, and we always say no. It's against our principles. I know it's a corrupt business, but you have to draw your lines somewhere. So you will excuse me if I draw the line at doing an interview with a pornographic magazine."

"I don't get it. You say you won't do interviews for Playboy because it's anti-woman. Well, fair enough. That's actually really admirable and I respect that. But you won't do an interview with us, even though we are an explicitly feminist and pro-woman magazine, because we display explicit pictures of non-exploited people loving one another? How is that fair?" I felt my face flushing slightly, but I tried to calm the rising anger.

He stopped his pacing and folded his arms, pouting at me as he fussed with his short, stubbly beard, scratching at his face almost compulsively.

"You approved the questions I sent through. Five minutes ago, you were keen to do this interview when you thought I wrote for Next Step, but now you're dead set against it? It's the same interview, the same questions."

"Listen, what was it - Fiona? It's nothing personal, I swear. I'm just slightly uncomfortable with this." He paused, moving from scratching his face to rubbing his eyes, then turned and blinked at me. "Actually, I'm kinda tired and I've been talking all day, and... I'd really like a cup of tea. Would you like a cup of tea?" The tough voice he had put on earlier had peeled away, leaving him sounding very posh and rather vulnerable.

"Yes, please. Oh, don't get up. I'll just go out and make some..." I suddenly felt rather bad for unsettling him. It was bad interview form to get off to such a prickly start, especially with such a notoriously problematic interviewee, and I felt the urge to do something nice for him, get back on his good side.

"No, no way." He smiled, good natured laughter creeping back into his voice. "You've just told me you're a feminist, there's no way I'm going to ask you to make tea for me. How do you take it?"

"Milk, no sugar, please."

As he disappeared out into the other room, I stared down at my notebook, wondering how on earth I was going to explain this. Should I call my editor? Go back and argue my case with the publicist? Just give up and run silently from the room before anyone figured out I was a total sham as a professional journalist who couldn't even get an interview out of an agreed interview subject? No, pull yourself together, Fiona.

About five minutes later, he reappeared, balancing two cups of tea in his hands, a sheet of folded paper under his arm. "You're absolutely right. I checked the email with our publicist. You were completely straightforward about who you are and who you work for." He managed to place my cup of tea in front of me without spilling any. "Shall we try this again?"

"You'll do the interview?" A flood of surprise and relief I tried not to show in my voice.

He nodded cautiously, and I switched the button of my machine to record. "I did say I would. This is just... I suppose it's just awkward. Typical public school boy, gets a bit weird about sex."

"We don't have to talk about sex if it makes you uncomfortable. OK, though I did want to talk to you about gender, if you can separate..."

"Yes, I know. And those are the questions I've really been thinking over because, to be honest, no one has ever asked those kinds of questions of me before, and I was a little bit put out, but also at the same time, quite intrigued. Because you're right, I read interviews with my friends who are female musicians, like, women I respect, women I've worked with, and they always get asked about their gender, and their experiences as a woman. And no one has ever asked me about how my masculinity affects my music. And it completely does, trying to come up with a way to express my masculinity without turning into a complete arrogant cock of a rock star - or even, like, when I'm not trying to express aggression, but to express the anger of impotence..." Suddenly he went bright red. "I meant, the sense of being powerless, not, you know..." As he subconsciously glanced down towards his lap, he burst into giggles, his laugh very loud and quite infectious after his earlier defensiveness. "Not that I have ever experienced the other kind of impotence, ever, in my life. Sorry - sex again. I am going to spend the rest of this interview trying very hard not to talk about sex, which is of course going to make me talk about it more."

I couldn't help myself; I was actually charmed by the way he seemed to switch gears mid-sentance, from insightfully intellectual to giggling schoolboy at his own double entendre. "It's impossible not to talk about something once it's been forbidden. Like, if someone tells you, you must try not to think about a white elephant for the next five minutes, you will spend the next five minutes thinking of nothing but white elephants. You often get this with interviews - you get a fax from their publicist telling you, do not under any circumstance, bring up X, or the interview is over, and then you do the interview and your interview subject spends 20 minutes going on at length about X."

"I dunno." His eyes flashed. "I suppose maybe if you weren't a woman, it would, ironically, be a lot easier."

I bristled inside, but tried not to let it show in my voice. "What, to talk about sex, or to not talk about sex?"

"Either. But, it's sexist to say that, isn't it?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure what you're implying? Do you mean that when you're in an all male situation, that sex and gender simply doesn't exist, and the presence of a woman automatically brings up the question of sex? As if that's the only function of a woman, to do sex? Because that is..."

"No, I don't think that's it at all." He cocked his head to one side as he interrupted me, his one eye narrowing in thought as the other stayed fixed, regarding me evenly. "For a start, it's not as if sex doesn't exist just because you're in a gang of five blokes. It's a very sexy thing, making music together, and we are conscious of that. We've known each other long enough that we're quite comfortable with that. I think that's part of our magic, of why we work, that we have that history and that long-term way of interacting with one another. But I do think in a way that gender doesn't exist when you're in a group of all one sex. And I think that a woman arriving in that setting suddenly makes gender salient in a way it wasn't before."

"Does it have to?"

"I don't know. Don't you ever get that when you're in a group of all women, and a bloke walks in? That certainly feels really uncomfortable, if you're the bloke..."

"Do you know how rare it is that women actually get to gather in an all female group? Certainly not in a work situation. It's far more often the other way around."

"I dunno, don't you have, like, pillow parties and hen nights, and, like, sororities and... fuck, this is starting to sound like the scenario for a lesbian porn film. See? I told you so, the harder I try not to think about it, the more it comes up." He squirmed on the sofa. "No, don't look at me like that!"

"Like what?" I protested. I'd been trying very hard not to break into a smile or even an eyeroll.

"Like that. Like you're imagining me naked."

I burst out laughing. It was the last thing I'd been thinking of. "You're projecting. You're the one going on about pillow parties and porn films. Are you just going to think that everything I say or even imply from my expression is smutty, because...?"

A strange, slightly dreamy expression came over his face.

"Or have you actually been trying to imagine me naked?" I teased.

He sat up, looking rather alarmed, the panic showing in his face. "Absolutely not! In no way." I wondered if I'd hit a nerve as he tried to compose himself. "I'm sorry. Let's start over. Just ask me another question."

"I haven't asked you any questions yet."

"OK, then shoot. No, wait, I meant... questions, not photos." He seemed genuinely flustered, smiling and blushing as he rubbed his face. His voice got much, much posher when he was nervous, and he sounded like the Oxford schoolboy he still faintly resembled with his mussed hair and his impish grin.

"Alright. What's your favourite tree?"

"My what?" he looked up, completely taken aback.

"Your favourite tree. Deciduous? Conifer? You don't seem much like a conifer man to me."

"Are you asking me this because of the title of the album? Is it supposed to be a tie-in? Because that's not actually even my favourite tree." He had started to relax, unfolding his arms and leaning forward in his seat to sip at his tea.

"No, I'm asking you because this is my ice-breaker question, my slightly weird and disarming question to loosen you up. And also, because I like trees, and you can tell a lot about a person about what they notice about them. What kind of tree do you like best?"

"Wow." He smiled placidly, clearly thinking over happy memories. "OK, I like so many kinds of trees. I'm really fond of beech woods, there's one near my house, and they have such a dappled light, but they're kind of arseholes in the tree world, because nothing can really grow under them. I like oaks, too, they're just so quintessentially English, but that's such an obvious answer, isn't it? Silver birches are lovely, but they're kind of showy... Oh, I know. Chestnuts. They've got those wonderful big leaves like hands, and they're so pretty when they're in flower, like candles, and in the autumn, of course, conkers. Plus... you can eat them. How can you go wrong with chestnuts?" He looked really pleased with himself once he'd decided that, drawing deeply on his tea again. "What about you? What's your favourite tree?" His eyes actually twinkled as he asked.

"I think hornbeams."

"Yeah, they've got a fantastic name, haven't they? Hornbeam."

"I like the kind of pagoda things they make when they flower, they're a really unusual shape, the little tassels on them."

"Fantastically hard and dense wood, too, isn't it? Does that tell me anything I need to know about you, at all?" he teased.

"Dense? You calling me stupid?" I hoped it sounded more teasing than defensive.

"Ha ha, no, I didn't mean stupid, obviously. I meant more, multi-layered, full of contradictions, difficult to penetrate... oh shit, no! Not like that!" He collapsed in giggles again. His laugh was actually adorable, the way he crumpled up in little boy mirth. "Don't look at me like that, it was a slip. It was a complete Freudian slip."

"I'm not looking at you like anything." In fact, I'd been working quite hard to keep my face a blank mask of mild professional interest. I paused as he tried to compose himself and stop giggling. "Do you not like being looked at?"

"No, it's nothing like that at all. Of course I'm fine with being looked at. I couldn't do the job I do, I couldn't go onstage and jump about if I didn't like being looked at."

"Do you enjoy being looked at, when you're on stage?"

A crooked grin. "Fuck, of course I do. For an attention-seeking, exhibitionist, show-off like me, it's... it's paradise. Which is odd, because offstage, that is the complete opposite of what I'm like, awkward bastard that I am. I suppose I'm an attention seeker, yes, but I like getting up people's noses and winding them up. I'm not a people person, really. But when I get onstage, it's like I'm powerful, and I'm godlike, and irresistible and it's a really intoxicating feeling, like, it is addictive, and... I suppose that's what keeps us going. I don't know if I'm ever prepared to give that feeling up."

"What do you think about, when you're performing?"

"I don't think. That's the brilliant part of it. Like, most of the time, the inside of my head is a mess, and I'm stressed out and my brain is whirring in a hundred directions at once and I'm thinking round and round in ever decreasing circles." He gestured with his hands, describing circles in the air, like goldfish swimming round a bowl. "But you get onstage, or even just in the studio, when you're rehearsing, your head just... stops." He opened his hands wide, like an explosion. "It's almost like meditating, in a way - though obviously it's completely different. But the effect is the same, that it puts you absolutely in the moment, in the now." Even talking about performing seemed to relax him, as he leaned back in the sofa, his arms flung wide as he smiled at me.

"Do you find it different from being looked at, when you're being photographed - because you just said you hated being photographed?"

"No, I didn't say that. I just said I didn't want to take my clothes off and show my nasty, pale, pasty body. Being photographed is... it's weird. I don't hate it, the narcissist in me, in a strange way really quite enjoys it. It's just the artificiality of it, the whole thing of trying to project who you are - or rather, trying not to project who you aren't. And trying to spend 20 minute with exactly the same expression on your face because you know that the minute you laugh, or you sneeze, or you put your hands in your face, that is the shot that they are going to use. But... I'm comfortable with a camera. Or at least I've learned how to be. It's kind of good, for a control freak, learning to let go of that control. That you spend ages getting ready, and putting a lot of thought into what you're going to look like, and getting your hair exactly right, and then it's out of your hands. I'm never happy with the results, but you learn that that's alright, that it doesn't actually steal your soul, to have a bad picture taken of you. That you can still walk around with your own mental idea of what you look like, intact, in your head, and that's fine."

I looked at my next question and frowned, deciding not to chance it.

"Wait, what are you doing, what are you scratching out?" Leaning forward, he tapped at my notebook playfully.

"Well, I can't ask you that question now."

"You can... why, what is it?"

"You're not going to like it. I think it's probably too personal."

"Well you can give me your notebook and I'll just go through the whole list and tell you which ones you can ask and which ones you can't, if you like," he teased.

"Where's the fun in that? Awkward questions are good. They tend to get good answers, even if people try to evade them." Half of me wanted to slip down to his level, to giggle along and tease right back like a schoolgirl, but the other half reminded myself that I had a job to do and an interview to file. I flipped the page over and read the next question on my list. "I sometimes feel like your songs have an almost spiritual dimension. Do you believe in god?"

"OK, whoa, that is a very personal question. That might even be more personal than asking me about sex. Because the idea of god means so many things to so many different people, that I'm not sure what you would think I was acknowledging or denying. We would have to have a conversation about what that word even means to start with."

"You tell me what you think it means, then."

He paused for quite some time, playing with his lips, with a slightly vacant, faraway expression in his eyes, until I had almost given up on getting an answer out of him, and was about to ask the next question, when he finally responded. "Well, I'll tell you what I don't believe in, I don't believe in some woolly bearded white man in the sky, and I don't believe in anything or anyone that tries to make people hate one another, based on arbitrary rules. But... I do want to say that I do believe in god, because I want to kind of wrest that concept back from nutjobs and extremists, even though my concept of the divine is probably much closer to Buddhism than the Christian tradition I was raised in. And I do have quite a strong sense of spirituality, it's something I feel, something I know, in my heart, every time I go for a walk in the woods or stand by the sea, or look into the night sky. But I don't know that believe is the right word, because that implies proof and evidence, and it's not like that. It's like... how do you know you're loved? You just know, you just feel it."

I winced self-consciously, a reflex he completely misinterpreted.

"But I think that's all I really want to say, in the national press, because this is so personal, and it's so easy for other people to twist it to say it means something that I don't." He picked up his teacup, drank, and replaced it with a clatter to reinforce the finality of that statement.

"OK, fair enough, and I really appreciate the honesty of that answer. And I actually do agree with you, so I'm not going to twist what you said."

He exhaled with palpable relief. "You know, if you could ask me that, now I'm really wondering about the question you wouldn't ask me before. What was it?"

"It's not important."

"Go on, ask me, now I'm really curious."

"Alright." I turned the page back. "I was going to ask you what it was like to be desired, on your kind of massive level."

He twisted awkwardly in his seat, one hand going to the back of his neck, twining itself in his hair. "I'm not desired."

I looked at him askance as I sipped my tea, wondering whether to call him on that, and he mirrored me, picking up his own teacup and looking at me cautiously over the rim as he drank. "Is that denial, or are you genuinely not aware of the massive amount of sexual desire that gets focused on you? Like, do you not look at the internet, or just not interact with your fans that much?"


	2. Politics

"No, I'm aware. But... it's not really about me, is it? It's about some image of me that they've built up inside their heads, some media projection. Those fantasies are not about the actual me, any more than the media's image of my 'miserable doom-laden band' are really about me because they never see us cackling like schoolboys in the rehearsal studio. It's photographs, it's videotape, it's not me." I looked at him curiously again, still sipping at my tea, to see if he'd elaborate. "Don't get me wrong. I suppose I'm flattered. Of course I am. I've always been kind of small, and a bit odd-looking, and... bleh," He pulled a lopsided expression, deliberately exaggerating his asymmetrical face. "Growing up, I always had about a thousand times more ambition and arrogance than I ever had looks - so it's quite gratifying that I was able to pull off the confidence trick and be perceived as sexy. It's flattering, of course it is. It's just weird, because it seems to bear so little relation to me, and who I am. That it's about what I do - you know, the whole rock star thing. Or it's about really superficial aspects of my looks. And nothing to do with who I am, as a human being, so it's quite difficult to take seriously."

I nodded and uncrossed my legs, folding them up under me on the sofa and again, he unconsciously echoed my body language, pulling his legs up. Was he doing it on purpose, mirroring me like this? It was such a classic trick, the kind of thing they taught at stage school, How To Win Friends And Influence People, to get people to trust you. But the idea seemed so utterly incongruous with the rest of his slightly spikey, cautious persona.

"I suppose it goes along with the whole thing that we, are a group, are always doing to ourselves, we're always suffering these crises of confidence, like, we are constantly doubting ourselves, and even as we're working, working, working on recording, you're still kind of secretly terrified that you can't live up to your own track record, and it's that same way, when someone tells me they fancy me, or random fans tell me that they love me, it's that same confidence of crisis, that I don't believe I can possibly measure up to that fantasy image they have of me in their heads. It's weird. My partner is always saying that I have this almost impossibly immense need - even drive - for acceptance, for love. But when I encounter it, I'm incapable of accepting that it's real. So it's a gift and a curse, all that love." He swallowed nervously and reached for his tea as if wanting to cover up his mouth, to stop the words falling out.

"What came first, when you originally started making music - the desire to be looked at, the desire to be the centre of attention, or the desire to actually make music, to make a statement?"

"Oof, that's an awkward one." He crossed his arms, scratching behind one ear. "Because that depends very much on who you ask. Like, my guitarist, Jonny, he knew from an early age, that he wanted to make music, that he just wanted to make weird sounds, make noises that no one had ever heard before. But I think it was a bit less complicated with me. I just wanted people to pay attention to me. I always wanted to shout and make a noise to get people to look at me. Notice me. I've always had a touch of the attention seeking monster, I'm always winding people up and getting up their noses. If you won't notice me, I'll make you notice me. It's just how I've always been."

"How do you square that, that desire for attention, to get people to look at you - with your oft-stated disgust for celebrities and celebrity culture?"

"Ha!" he snorted in derision. "Well, it's just such a nothing, isn't it? It's so false, and so phony."

"Yes, Holden Caulfield."

"Fuck off," he laughed. "No, it's just... I hate the whole kind of culture of entitlement around it. That people think, just because they're famous and you're famous, that they are somehow entitled to a piece of you, a piece of your time, without even having the decency to even ask. I really resent it. I am really bad at that whole smile and fake it thing. But there's still this endless, empty, shrill demand for attention, without any kind of substance behind it."

"But you said yourself, two minutes ago, that you were an attention seeker..."

"Onstage, yes. But there's an end to it, and a line, you know, my privacy starts here." Gesturing with his hands, he described a line across the table between us. "You have to draw that line or it eats you alive. There's a limit to how on you can be, all the time, or it starts to become fake. I respect my audience too much to ever fake it for them. And that total celebrity culture, totally open, totally self promoting, all the time, even when they have nothing to promote but their own tawdry selves, it's just empty. Sure, when I was 15, I was a fucking brat, and I did want to be famous, because I thought I had something to prove. I think I wanted the validation. But I always wanted to be famous for something, not just in the abstract. Not that Warhol thing - famous for being famous." He paused, then added, almost as an afterthought, the kicker. "And I think, if I knew, at 15, what it would involve to actually be famous - no one would fucking do it."

"You think so? The world seems to disagree with you on that one."

"I know so. No one would put up with it. Fucking flashbulbs in your face. Strangers, constantly, trying to touch you. People going through your trash. People hacking your phone. People trying to take pictures of your children at the school gates. You hug one of your friends at a gig, and your children read in the newspapers the next day that you're having an affair and their parents are going to split up. People write gay porn about you, and they publish it on the internet, where your family can find it." His voice rose with outrage, becoming more urgent. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not homophobic in the slightest - I have many, many gay and lesbian friends. But what would inspire a man, to write something like that and then..."

"It's not usually men, you know," I interrupted.

"What?" That stopped him, mid-rant.

"If you're talking about slash, that's overwhelmingly written by women. We get a lot of it submitted at Incandescent, in our erotic writing competitions. It's a hugely popular genre. Does really well with our audience; women can't get enough."

Cocking his head to one side like a sparrow, he stared at me, completely flabbergasted, and I could almost see the little wheels turning inside his skull. "Why?"

"Why are there lesbian porn films set at pillow parties and sororities? Why is the single sex situation so appealing to the erotic imagination of the opposite sex? You tell me."

He carried on staring at me, his body unusually frozen, without fidgeting or fussing with his hair or his clothes, as if he were either too engrossed in mental activity to move, or the information had completely short circuited his brain. But finally, as if resurfacing from a deep dive, he blinked, both eyelids moving in unison for once, then shook his head like a rabbit trying to dislodge a flea. "I'm sorry, we're doing it again. We're back on sex. What were we talking about? Can you please repeat the question?"

"You were explaining to me, why, if you'd known at 15 what fame would actually involve, you'd have, I don't know, given up and become an advertising executive instead?" I smiled, trying to steer the conversation back to safer waters.

"Ha! Well, I don't know that I'd have gone that far." His face cracked open into a pixie-like grin, the faraway look in his eyes dispelled by a glinting amusement. "I sound like such a moaner, don't I? I'm doing what I love, I'm getting paid for doing what I love, and I am so grateful. But the fame thing, and people who want to do this, because they want to be famous? It's absurd. People think that being famous means that everybody has to love you. When it doesn't, it means that every angry shithead in the world thinks they're entitled to an opinion on you, usually negative, or worse, a piece of you. And it's not worth it, it's really not. Because there's this idea, these days, that fame is something to aspire to, for its own sake. When the awful truth is, actually, it's this horrific by-product, like, this toxic waste formed as a result of doing what it is you really love."

I nodded slowly in recognition. It was an odd sentiment to hear from a musician I'd have expected to be pleased at his success, but it made sense. "That's a really interesting way of putting it, and so backwards from the way that culture production seems structured at the moment. But... If you hate it so much, why feed it? Why do interviews at all?"

He squirmed, clearly uncomfortable with this line of questioning. Perversely, that made me want to pursue it more. "Because you have to?"

"Says who? Why not be like Aphex Twin, and just refuse?"

I could see his face light up slightly at the reference. "Have you interviewed the Aphex Twin?" he asked slightly breathlessly, in complete counterpoint to his earlier insistence that he was not bothered about celebrities at all.

"No, of course I haven't. I did ask, but..." I shrugged.

"Yeah, I've never even met the fellow. We asked him to tour with us, once or twice, but he just emailed our manager and told us to fuck off. I was a bit... I dunno, irked by the rejection, but I kind of admired his complete refusal to do anything he didn't fancy doing."

"You know," I pointed out. "You no longer have a record company forcing you to do anything, either. This is an option for you. You don't have to do it either."

His expression was half wistful and half completely perplexed. I could never work out which side of his face to trust. "How?"

"Point blank, just don't answer your publicist's emails."

"I like our publicist, I wouldn't do that to her."

"Or insist all your interviews are done by email, and just send random garbled rubbish. It's not done Richard James any harm, in fact I think the mystique has only added to his appeal."

Looking down at his hands, he studied his fingernails carefully, as if thinking this over for the first time. "I suppose that he's lucky, in that he does not actually care what people write about him. And I kind of... do?" His voice grew so low, so vulnerable, that I almost had trouble catching the last word.

"Why?"

"I don't care how I'm represented, but I do care how my... my work is represented. Because I do think that I have things to say, and I think they're too important to be left in the hands of the fucking hacks that make up the British music press."

I coughed lightly, but smiled to show I was more bemused than offended.

"No offense," he added quickly.

"None taken." I waited to see if had any more to add, but he stayed silent, playing with the stubble on his neck. "You know, it's funny, but I might suggest... well, there's this great Damien Hirst quote about art..."

"Oh, I fucking hate Damien Hirst. Absolutely loathe the man. And his completely overrated work. Complete wanker."

"Yeah, hang on, though. This quote is brilliant. He said, 'any art that requires a massive intellectual backpack is, by its nature, shit art.'"

"Aw... no," Thom sputtered, outraged.

"I think it's surprisingly wise, actually. When I was at art school, I always completely hated writing artists' statements and all that crap. I always thought, if my picture needs a whole statement to explain what it means, then I've failed as an artist. You don't think that applies to music, as well?"

He absolutely bristled. "I absolutely fucking hate Damien Hirst, and quotes like that are precisely why - that whole fucking dumbing down of culture. Of course he doesn't want anyone to bring an intellectual backpack to his exhibits because they'd realise how fucking empty and banal it all is - spot painting and spin art, I fucking hate that shit. Empty. Meaningless. Pacifying. Anodyne. It's like he's shouting really loud, but he has absolutely nothing to say any more. It's just like really loud overcompressed pop music, the whole point is to blot out thoughts, not actually express human emotion. It's fucking... fridge buzz." It was the first time I'd seen him get really animated, when he was really angry.

"I like pop music. I write about the political and cultural landscape that creates pop culture figures like Lady Gaga and Beyonce, and what it all means, remember?" I reminded him, leaning forward and patting him on the hand. "And I like fridge buzz, too. I'll happily listen to an air conditioning fan that's slightly out of phase for hours and hours. I mean, aren't you an Autechre fan?"

He burst out laughing, and the anger that had been building in his face drained away.

"Do you think music always has to say something? Does it always have to have a statement?"

"It has to have an emotional impact, otherwise, why bother? But... even Autechre, at their most abstract, they were still saying something. Remember the whole repetitive beats thing on the Anti EP?"

"I remember 'Autechre are politically non-aligned. This is about personal freedom.'"

"I dunno, I took non-aligned to mean, rising above party politics. I didn't take it to mean that they had nothing to say. But... OK." He reached to take a sip of his tea, but found the cup empty. "Point taken. I guess politics isn't a very sexy thing or anything, but..."

I smiled coyly and leaned in. "It is for our readers."

"Really." The expression on his face was priceless, somewhere between confusion and abject fear, giving way to a slightly intrigued look.

"You don't think feminism is political?"

"OK, yeah, it totally is, fair point."

"Alright, that begs the next question. At what point did you know that you had something important to say? What was the catalyst? Or was it always obvious to you?"

He played with the ring on his middle finger, twisting it round and round before pulling it off and replacing it upside down. "OK, this is the odd thing. That I didn't realise, when I started writing music, that I had anything important to say. I just knew I had to say something. So I don't know that there was a catalyst, so much as a slow realisation, that the things I was dealing with, the things I was going through, were not just in my own head, but something that many, many people were struggling with. I thought I was just depressed - that I was suffering from fucking crippling depression, not realising how much of what I was feeling was not actually things that were wrong with me, but things that were wrong with the entire stinking system." He leaned to the side now, resting his elbow on the arm of his sofa, and his head on his hand. "I struck a chord with people. There's a part of me that thinks that was just sheer blind luck. Because you don't ever actually know, when you first start writing, if it's any good or not. There's almost no way of telling, when you're deep in it, whether it's working or not."

"You mean, when you first started writing music, as a teenager or whenever, or when you sit down to start writing any song?"

"Both. Either." He shrugged helplessly, his face suddenly very open and almost childlike.

"Can you tell when it's worked? Is it hard for you to get perspective, on your own work?"

"It's impossible. I can never tell what people are going to like."

"When you write, are you writing a reflection of your own experiences, or are you constructing parallel worlds?"

He brightened as I spoke, a flicker of genuine pleasure crossing his face, his face lit up as if from within. "What a great question. Definitely the latter. I feel, when I write, like my bits, they're already out there, like I'm picking them up on some celestial antenna, and I'm picking them up and just writing them down. They're nothing to do with me. It's like a radio station that I somehow tune in to, and it's just... beamed to me. Words, music, the lot. Does that make me sound completely insane?"

"No, I get that answer a lot, actually."

"Oh, thanks for making me feel special. Do you tell that to all the boys?" He threw his head back as he mock sighed in outrage.

I laughed, then shrugged. "It's strange, though, the assumption that many people have, about music, that it has to be autobiographical. In a way they don't assume about other artforms. That if you write a novel, or make a film, if it's too much about your own life, that's bad. And yet, in a song, it's somehow expected? People assume that, to be authentic, it must be from the heart."

"It can be from the heart. To be able to sing a song convincingly, you have to be able to believe it. But that doesn't mean that you know where it comes from."

"But so much of writing is a kind of 'what if...' game. At least, that's what I find, when I'm writing fiction. You're constantly pulling out little bits of your own life and experiences, and bits of your friends, and kind of weaving them together in this patchwork of truth and fiction and yourself and others. It comes from truth, from reflections on things you've experienced or witnessed, but it is projected into this parallel world of might have beens..." I cut myself off abruptly, realising that I was rambling dangerously. "But fiction is of course different. I imagine writing song lyrics is different, something closer to poetry."

"You write fiction as well?" This had pricked his interest, as he leaned forward, towards me, studying me as if really noticing me for the first time. This was a mistake, I had broken the fourth wall, entered into the interview as a participant rather than as an examiner, so I tried desperately to backpedal.

"Well, short stories. Yeah, you wouldn't like them, though," I shrugged, embarrassed to have brought it up. "They're smutty."

"Oi, stop it. now you're trying to paint me as a puritan, and honestly, that's not fair, I'm really not." He was blushing furiously, even as he grinned in protest.

"No, I do mean, genuinely, you would not like them." I kept my voice even, perplexed, even irritated by his embarrassment.

"Why?"

"Because they're for girls. It's erotic fiction, romance, porn for girls. All that shit you hate, that makes you curl up and go defensive. All concerned with sex and eroticism..."

"I never said I didn't like sex or eroticism. Half my music is love and sex and eroticism."

"OK, you just don't want to answer questions about love and sex and eroticism. You just want to answer questions about politics and poetry," I teased.

"Hey, no. That's not fair," he protested, his lips twisting petulantly as he knitted his eyebrows together. "I have a sensual side. I even have a sentimental side. I just think... it's kind of self indulgent to go on about it."

"Don't get sentimental, it always ends up drivel?"

"Shut up." He pointed at me accusingly, then burst into laughter. "Don't use my words against me."

"I can't help it. I'm a journalist. It's what I do." His laugh was infectious, a demented little boy cackle that made me laugh in reaction. "Have you ever actually written a straightforward love song?"

"Don't be silly. Course I have." His lips slipped into a self mocking sneer. "Then tore them up and threw them straight in the bin."

"I don't actually think that's true. I think, especially on the last two albums, you have come full circle. That you started out, your first two albums were fairly personal, and then the next three, four, you became overtly political, but the last two, the metaphors have become wider, and you've come full circle and slipped back into the personal again."

"Well, the personal is political, isn't that what you feminists always say?" He narrowed his eyes at me like a cat, or rather one eye narrowed, the other stayed frozen in place. It was odd, slightly unnerving, the way it never quite seemed to blink.

"Or I could read them completely literally and think that you're singing about wife swapping and one night stands."

Again the crooked half-smile. "Maybe I am."

I sipped my rapidly cooling tea, my eyebrows raised expectantly, waiting to see if there were more to this. Sometimes the hardest part of an interview was not asking questions, but holding off to see if there was any more information that would slip out in an awkward silence.

"If, as you say, it's a parallel world that I'm creating, then it's a safe place to explore those kinds of feelings, those kinds of urges." He picked up his water bottle again and gulped at it nervously. "You know, it's odd. It's harder for me to talk about sexual or emotional kinds of things, than it is to talk about politics, or religion, or death, or any of those Big Subject Matters that you're supposed to avoid. And I know this is my upbringing, that repressed and neurotic middle class English, single sex, public school boy thing. And I'm very aware that you want me to talk about sex, and I just..." He waved his hands helplessly in the air in front of him.

"You keep assuming that I want you to talk about sex. When it's the one thing I haven't asked..."

"But you have! You keep asking..."

"No, I said you wouldn't like my trashy novels. And you decided to insist that you were OK with love and sex and eroticism."

"You brought it up. What do you expect me to say? That I hate sex? I don't." He twisted in his seat, writhing like a little boy. "Look, we can talk about sex if you want to. I'm a grown adult. I've had sex. I have two children - so, at least twice." He pulled a self effacing grin and tried to laugh his way out of it, uncrossing then recrossing his legs.

I laughed aloud. "You know, I was never actually going to ask you about sex. I'm a music journalist, not a gossip columnist. You are projecting onto me again. I mean, what is it? It is what you were saying earlier, that because I'm a woman, sex somehow automatically enters the atmosphere."

"No! I was half joking anyway. I have lots of female friends. I'm perfectly comfortable talking to women. I suppose I think it's, well, knowing what you do, knowing what you work as."

"What I do? Write?"

"No, I mean, write for..." he lowered his voice conspiratorially. "...a porn mag. Maybe I've seen too many porn films, but every time you bring that up, I can't get it out of my head that any second now there's going to be some slap bass - bow-chicka-bow-bow..." He mimed a few notes of air bass against his chest. "...and then it's going to turn into an elaborately concocted scenario to... seduce me." His eyes flashed with mischief as he hunkered down in the chair, sprawling out in almost a parody of a seductive pose, looking so ridiculous I was tempted to simply burst out laughing.

"Would you like me to seduce you, is that what you're trying to tell me?" I tossed back teasingly, and for a moment a slightly panicked look came over his face, like he actually thought I was serious. "Look, you needn't worry about it. Wrong sexual orientation for you, anyway."

He rolled over on his side, studying me curiously with glittering eyes. "You're gay?"

"No, actually I'm asexual."

His eyebrows knitted together in puzzlement as he tried to figure that one out. "So how does that work. You're an asexual, writing for a pornographic magazine. Isn't that a contradiction?"

"Hey, I'm interviewing you, remember? You're not interviewing me. I ask the questions."

"But... I think it's relevant. Your credentials for asking me about sex when you... don't." He peered at me curiously, looking me up and down in a way that suddenly made me feel like I was being evaluated, sexually, for any sign of flaw or deviancy. I hated that feeling so much I went on the attack.

"What, is it more of a contradiction than a vegan wearing leather shoes?" My eyes dropped down to the floor, to his discarded boots.

"Watch it."

"Or an anti-corporate climate change campaigner who makes a very good living selling small pieces of plastic?"

"Listen, I am long reconciled to the contradictions in what I do. Life is complicated, it's about being able to accept complexity, and nuance. As a vegan, I've had to make my peace with not eating animal products, because there are viable alternatives, but there are not viable synthetic alternatives to leather shoes that I don't destroy after two weeks of sweaty socks on tour. But I do not, as a vegan, write for Sausage Wrapping Magazine."

"You made a choice, to be a vegan. I don't think that sexual orientation works on the same level. I mean, did you choose to be straight?"

"Weeelllll..." He squirmed. "There was some experimentation at college. I think that's pretty natural if you go to an all boys boarding school. You figure out what works in what hole, and what doesn't. Some of my friends did the bisexual thing for a while, and eventually settled down into permanent relationships with whoever suited them better. But... how can you write about something you don't do?"

"How can you write songs about politics, when you're not a politician?"

"Touche."

"But also, you know what you were saying earlier, about writing, and creating parallel worlds? That writing about sex is a way of exploring. That I'm completely fascinated by human sexual and, well, especially romantic relationships because they're something I really don't understand."

He bent his head down to the seat cushion, almost whispering. "So, have you never..."

"Oi, watch it. I ask you the questions, not you asking me, remember? And you've got a lot of nerve asking me that, when you've told me you don't want to talk about sex because it makes you uncomfortable."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be a smart arse. It's insensitive." As he paused, I caught him flicking his eyes up and down my body as if trying to read the state of my hymen in my clothes or my body language.

"To answer your question, I have had sex. At least twice." I reached for my notes to try and read the next question, but he was quicker than me, seizing them off the table and holding them in his lap, just out of my reach. "Give me my notes back."

"No, Fiona, we're going off piste," he teased, trying to recover our light-hearted mood, flicking idly through the pages. "I wanna talk about this... Hang on... what the fuck? Have you ever slept with a fan? What kind of question is that?"

"That wasn't a question for you. Look at the top of the page, dumb-arse, that was an interview with Justin Timberlake back in 2004 for an American magazine."

He put on a fake American accent and pretended to grill me. "Have you ever slept with an interview subject, Fiona?"

I was so irritated with him that I told the truth. "I have, actually."

Abruptly, he put the note pad down and stared up at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. Half his face looked angry, suspicious, while the other half looked almost as if he was weighing up his options. "Are you going to tell me about it?"

"I wrote about it, for fucks sake. It was published in Next Step."

"Why?" I couldn't work out if he was shocked or curious.

"We were a magazine that was about pushing the boundaries, we wrote about everything, the dirty little secrets behind the music business, the relationships, the handshakes, everything. I wrote about PRs, I wrote about blowjobs, I wrote about all the stuff you weren't supposed to see, that got left out even of supposed reality shows like Pop Idol."

"No - I know all that. In fact, actually think I remember the article. It was really striking. I was outraged, but also impressed that someone would write that openly about that aspect of the music press. Why did you sleep with him - it was a him, right?"

"Yeah." This was a painful memory and not really one I felt like digging up.

"Were you in a relationship with him? That's what I remember being outraged about, that whole idea of the fucking nepotism of it all. I've seen it happen, bands dating their PRs and then suddenly they're getting these massive 6-page spreads in the NME. It happens, and I know it happens, but it fucks me off so much."

"No, I wasn't. I know what you mean, but it wasn't actually like that. I don't really... do relationships. I don't see the point of them."

"Is that part of the whole asexual thing?" He raised himself up on one elbow, looking genuinely curious. He seemed intrigued by the whole 'asexual thing' though I couldn't really tell why. I suppose it must have been that kind of zoo exhibit thing. Or maybe... a shudder went down my spine. Maybe it was that over-entitled rock-star thing, realising that he couldn't manipulate me with his charisma if I didn't fancy him.

"Well, it was before I understood what I am, back when I still was... I dunno, still trying to understand 'sexual.'" I didn't know why it was quite so important to me to explain myself, justify what must have looked to him like completely unprofessional behaviour, but I felt a compulsion to. "I was completely obsessed with having control. And sex was another way of asserting control. But it wasn't about having a relationship, it was, absolutely nakedly, about power. I wrote that, in the column, and I meant it. I wanted to know what it felt like, for a man. I wanted to know what it meant to have that kind of power, and that kind of control over people, and that kind of privilege. It was a fucked up situation, this guy absolutely threw himself at me, he came at me like a ton of bricks, and I thought he was coming on to me, but it was just pure naked ambition, on his part. Because I was more well-known than him at the time, and I was writing for a proper music magazine, and it wasn't me he was after, or even a notch on the bed, but a rung on the ladder. Like you said, he wanted to be famous, to the all consuming point where he was willing to sleep with a woman he wasn't at all attracted to, in order to get coverage for his band. It was sick, and it was fucked up, but I was intrigued. I wanted to know, like, what would make someone behave like that? What makes someone like that tick? People often think that about fame, that if you fuck someone who's famous, it'll rub off or something. And it really doesn't. But I was just really intrigued by the whole gender reversal of the situation. And I'm perhaps really... attracted, emotionally, to really complicated and fucked up situations, because I want to understand them."

"Like I said, hard and dense." He had made himself comfortable, stretched his whole length along the sofa, his arms behind his head and his feet up on the cushions.

"See, it's a really good question, asking people about trees." I suddenly felt very embarrassed at having gone on at such length about myself. "Anyway, we're supposed to be talking about you."

"I'm still trying to work out what it means, if I'm a chestnut. Small, tough, closely guarded, and hard to crack." He gave a little laugh at that.

"Oh, so now you've completely lost all respect for me as a music journalist, you're just going to crack jokes for the rest of our time."

"No!" His face was all open honesty for a change. "I liked that story. I think... well, I think that you get it. These ugly systems, in the music industry, within politics, they exist. On a structural level. And it's really dishonest to just pretend they're not there, all - ooh, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain - when it is actually the PRs and the press quietly running the whole show. You don't have to be Snow White, you just have to acknowledge the corruption. Go on, ask me another question. I'll try to be honest. You fucking deserve it."

"OK..."

But as I reached for my notebook, there was a knock at the door to the suite, and the PR stuck her head in. "Sorry, just warning you, you've got five minutes left, and Atriedes from the Guardian is here already, so could you please wind it up?"

"No!" Thom protested as the door shut. "I was just starting to enjoy that. It can't be over already. That was just... shit, now I feel bad, because I messed you around so much at the beginning."

"It's alright, I've got a lot here. I can do my article."

"No." He seemed genuinely disappointed that it was over, swinging his legs off the sofa. "There were other questions that you had, that I really wanted to answer, and I didn't get the chance. Like, in the sample questions you sent through, you asked about the whole, 'crib in the hall being the death of creativity' thing, and when I read that, I really wanted to talk about it. Because no one ever asks you about fatherhood, and it's so fucking important, like, how it changes your life, and changes your priorities. Fatherhood is the most difficult and important thing I've ever done - and I wanted to say, that whole crib in the hall thing, it's fucking bullshit, man." His voice actually shot a couple of octaves up when he got really animated. "Like, it's just so poisonous, that idea. That somehow growing up and being a man and taking responsibility for your family is somehow inimical to the idea of real creativity, that you have to remain a perpetual adolescent and fuck people about like a child. It makes men hate their families, and hate women - and I'm sorry but I'm with you feminists on this one. Our society is really against the idea of fathers taking an active role in their children's lives and that's poisonous bullshit. For everyone. Pointing men away from their families and towards these macho mythos of long hours and hard work, usually in the service of corporations - that shit about families and the work-life balance, it's not just a feminist issue, it's an everyone issue." He had leaned forward in his seat, his eyebrows dancing up his forehead, his whole face lit up with passion.

I smiled at him sideways. "Most of feminism is, you know, everyone issues."

"I..." He had been about to start in on another rant when there was another knock at the door. "Just a minute!" he barked at the publicist then turned back to me, his face pleading. "Can you come back? Like, after I'm done with the Guardian?"

"I dunno," I hedged, looking at the clock on my phone.

"We'll probably be done about 7. And then I was going to break for dinner. They can not make me work through dinner, I'm done after the Guardian." I checked my diary, and the evening was clear, but I only had the rest of the week and the weekend to transcribe the interview and turn in my article. But he mistook my hesitation. "Look, give me your phone number. I'll text you when we're done. And we'll go out to dinner."

"I'm sorry, I don't have an expense account. Honestly, I can't afford that."

"No. My treat," he insisted. "Write your number down. I want to finish this interview and I feel shit for mucking you about."

OK, this was surreal, writing down my phone number and handing it to an international pop star. But it was flattering - it was always nerve-wracking after an interview, reviewing over and over in your head the questions that didn't quite work, the bits they offense at, the stupid digressions where you should have kept your mouth shut.

"And do you have a copy of your magazine that I can look over and, you know, see what it's like?"

Although it wasn't that odd a request - and I did indeed carry a spare copy of the magazine for that exact purpose - it still surprised me, given his initial resistance to the whole concept. "Sure. You won't like it, though..."

"You don't know what I like," he retorted, taking the magazine from me, though he frowned at the cover image of a naked man in the shower, and quickly squirreled it away under the pillow of one of the beds.

And then the door opened, and Atriedes walked in, smug, confident, the kind of music writer that made me want to punch music journalism in the throat and give up forever, and Thom suddenly stuffed my phone number into his pocket like he was palming illicit drugs.

"Atriedes."

"Fiona," he beamed, air-kissing me as we passed. "When are you coming back to do some more pieces for the Guardian?"

When you fucking pay your invoices within 30 days, I thought to myself, but merely shrugged and smiled. "Email me. I don't have the time to pitch right now."

I thanked the publicist and breezed out into the hall, only letting my serious journalist face drop when I was safely in the elevator. What a headfuck. It was nothing like I'd been expecting - to be honest, I'd expected him to be a difficult interview, but he had been forthcoming and intelligent and emotive and all the things you want an interview subject to be. But if that was the case, why did I feel so unsettled? Interviews got cut short all the time - an hour long face to face cut down to a fifteen minute phoner. I had more than enough material to produce a 5000 word lead.

But he'd hit a sore spot, in a place that I hadn't been expecting. Why had the interview got so personal about me? How had I allowed that to happen? It was the cardinal rule of interviews - you are not the story. I resolved to keep him at more of an arm's length during supper - if indeed we even had supper. What on earth was I thinking, hanging around Oxford Circus waiting for some pop star to ring me? He'd probably forget about me the moment the Guardian asked their first question. And I'd be wandering around here like a numpty, losing two hours of my life that I could be working. Still. I might as well give it a shot. Casting my eyes down the row of shops to find one that was still open, I stepped into Joe and the Juice for a cup of coffee. Carrying my cappuccino, I moved through into the sitting area at the back, finding an overstuffed chair to collapse in and try to get some work done. Even if I couldn't transcribe without my laptop, I could still go over the tape and jot down the timestamps of the good bits of the interview.

I always winced at the sound of my own voice on tape, it sounded deep and mannish to me, too throaty, like some drunk middle class matron at a dinner party. Thom's voice, though, made me smile. It was odd how different people's speaking voice could be from their singing voice, though his choirboy tones crept in as his voice slid up the register. It was kind of distracting, actually, hearing him in my headphones, in a way it hadn't been, sitting with him in the flesh. You should never interview bands you really love, it was too difficult juggling the fangirl and the music critic. But that was the secret of being a really good music journalist - trying to get back in touch with that fangirl inside.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I remembered that I'd turned the ringer off so it didn't interrupt the interview, so I pulled it out and checked to see if I had any messages. A missed call from my best friend, an email from my mum and - a text message from an unrecognised number.

"i love the grauniad but i am so bored of this man's questions i'm hiding in the loo to avoid them. i'll see u in an hour, yeah?"

I had been a music journalist for ten years. I thought I was immune to pop stars and celebrities. I'd once sat in a hotel bar with Bowie, and then gone ice skating with Iggy fucking Pop. Musicians did not phase me, alright? So why did I feel like standing up and announcing to the entire coffee shop that I had just got a text message from Thom Yorke? It was moments like this that my friends hated me for.

"Yeah, I'm only round the corner. Good luck, let me know when you're done. Remember, Atriedes is really a fashion journalist at heart, don't go too hard on him. I'll see you in an hour."

"ah. good. ur still there. i was actually worried for a bit u gave me a fake number"

Putting my hand over my mouth, I started to softly laugh. How insecure was this man? Why on earth would a journalist give their interview subject the wrong number? I added his contact details to my address book, then shoved my phone back in my pocket, trying to concentrate on listening back to the interview.


	3. Saucy

An hour later, my phone buzzed again. "u still there? interview finally fucken over. do u wanna come back& meet me? just come up to the room" For all his erudite conversation, it amused me that he still texted like a 15 year old boy.

"OK, be there in 10."

I gathered my things and made my way back to the hotel, staring at myself in the lift's mirror as I made my way up to the fifth floor. Damn, I hoped he didn't want to go anywhere too posh for dinner. In a faded leather jacket, black turtleneck, black leggings and knee-length corduroy skirt, I was dressed to pass muster for a rock'n'roll interview, but I'd never make it past the door at anywhere he was likely to want to eat. I tried to imagine Thom chowing down at my favourite all you can eat Thai vegetarian buffet and giggled at the thought.

Rapping on the door, I expected the PR to open it again, but after a few minutes, Thom appeared in the gap himself. "The cat's gone home. The mice are alone," he informed me with a crooked grin, gesturing for me to follow him back into the bedroom before flopping down onto one of the beds. For a second, I hesitated, and for a terrible moment, I wondered if there might be some ulterior motive here, if he had mistaken my employment for some kind of invitation, but then I saw him pull on his shoes and start to lace them up.

I walked through and perched on the opposite bed, wondering how to bring up the topic of where to eat.

"If you want something to drink, there's a bottle of wine in the fridge," he directed, reaching down and sipping from his own glass.

"Don't you have to drive back to Oxford this evening?"

"Nah, I'm staying over tonight. Shooting a video somewhere in Hackney tomorrow morning. That's why I got the hotel suite, thought it would be nicer than doing interviews in a record company's office somewhere. But no, it's alright. I'd quite like to get rat-arsed after six hours of fucking interviews. I'm exhausted and need to blow off steam."

I extracted the bottle of wine from the fridge and poured a glass for myself, though it looked as if he already had quite a head start on me. Silly me, I'd thought we were actually going to finish our interview.

"Oh, and I've been looking through your magazine while I was waiting for you."

"Beating one off in the toilet, then, have you?" I teased without stopping to think. Shit, coffee made me aggressive. We'd built up such a good rapport during the interview, but I still felt nervous about insulting him in the over-familiar way I'd rib one of my friends.

"Ha ha!" he cackled. Phew, no, it was alright, the wine had relaxed him. "No, I liked it. I actually did. I thought... well, when you said it was porn for women, I thought it was going to be all rippling, burly, eight foot tall men with hairless chests like tree trunks, and I thought it was going to make me feel like absolute shit, looking at it. But, like, the men - they're all different shapes, and sizes, and ages, and colours, and... some of the blokes in here, they actually looked like, well, me. Sensitive and pale and pot-bellied. And that made me feel quite good. When usually blokes in porn films, they have 12 inch cocks and they make me feel like absolutely inadequate shit."

"I did not know you were such a connoisseur of porn. I thought you were absolutely opposed to the whole thing. Remember - principles?"

"Alright, I'm not a saint. I've toured, a lot. I've spent a lot of lonely nights in hotel rooms. You do what you have to, to get through. And to be honest... I wish there were things like this for men."

"There are, you know. There are feminist porn directors who produce things like this, for couples, or for... touring gentlemen such as yourself. There's a directory, and reviews, in the back."

"Oh." He flipped to the back, looking attentively through the ads. "Can I keep this?"

"If you like." I tried very hard not to burst out laughing, though my face clearly gave me away.

"Not for me, well, not entirely - my... girlfriend was asking about it."

I smiled, relieved. Good. If he was telling his partner about it, he didn't have ulterior motives for asking me back to the hotel, even though he seemed to have no intention of carrying on our interview. "What did she think about the whole thing?"

He blushed and looked down. "She was intrigued by it. I think she quite liked the idea of it." He paused, coming to rest on a photo of chubby girl covered in tattoos engaged in an energetic threesome with a pale goth in leather chaps and a handsome black man with waist length dreadlocks. For a moment, he stared, intrigued, then giggled nervously and flipped the page. "In fact, she asked if I was going to be posing for it."

"And what did you say?" I laughed nervously. He didn't reply, but just looked at me from under his hair, his face half sneering, half tempted. "You know... you could, if you wanted to," I finally shrugged, but his face didn't change. He seemed to be actually thinking it over in a way that he would have found inconceivable two hours ago.

"They don't all actually show their cocks," he observed carefully.

"No," I assured him. "You can show, or hide, whatever you feel comfortable with. You can even have right of refusal over photos if that makes you more confident."

As he took a large gulp of wine, I could see angels and devils fighting behind his eyes. "Who would be taking the photographs? You... or some stranger?"

I took a fortifying sip of wine myself, then picked up my bag, pulling out the locked case that held the massive professional digital camera I'd inherited from my father. I could barely believe this was really happening, and did not want to scare him out of it, as he seemed so close to agreeing. "I could do it. I'm not a professional photographer, but I'm alright. I know my way around this thing."

He frowned, and seemed to be thinking very deeply. For a moment, I actually thought he was on the urge of saying yes, his lips pulled back as if to form the word, looking so beautiful that I mentally started to compose the shot and frame his face, his dark blond hair caught in the aureole of the halogen spot-lamp over the bed, but suddenly he shook his head and looked straight up at me. "Let's get something to eat. I'm not making any decisions on an empty stomach."

"OK. Do you have any preference? Anywhere that you fancy?"

He made a face. "I don't know. I sort of wanted to get room service but they're pretty seriously lacking in vegan options. Do you know anywhere good around here?"

I thought for a minute, casting my mind through the limited options. The restaurants in this area tended towards either the cheap and dirty lunch crowd or vastly over priced expense account type places. "Well, if you're up for Turkish food, there's Ozer, or if you'd prefer Indian, there's Kerala."

"North or South Indian?" he demanded. Somehow I'd just known that he'd be picky about food, he seemed the type.

"Kerala? South, Thom."

"Do they do takeaway? I've been talking all day, I don't really feel like dealing with, I dunno, crowds of people and waiters and things..."

"Well, they don't deliver, but we could probably ring ahead and collect - though actually I'd recommend going down and seeing what they have on special. They make things like banana flower curry."

"Banana flour? What, like, baked? Banana bread?"

"No, like flowers. Actual flowers. I don't know about you, but I love the idea of eating flowers. It just appeals to my surrealist sensibilities, eating things that should be inedible. Banana flower curry, rose jam, elderflower fritters. Don't you like eating flowers?"

"Alright, you've sold me." Climbing off the bed, he picked up a suit jacket off the back of a chair and threw it round his shoulders. "Let's go and graze on flowers. Like Ermintrude."

When we both stood, I was reminded again how tiny he was. I felt like a giant by comparison, towering over him by about six inches. In the lift, we stared at our reflections in the mirror, and I felt suddenly very awkward, noting the displeased expression on his face. But then he stepped closer, and I realised it wasn't me he was glaring at. He pulled a face, rolled his eyes in frustration, then tried to fix his hair in the mirror, tugging the bits at the back to make them stand up, then pulling his fringe forward to dangle properly in his face.

I suppressed a snigger, but he heard me, his eyes darting towards me in the mirror. "What? I spend ages doing it, right, and trying to get it to look good? And then it just all goes wrong."

"You look fine," I told him, internally rolling my eyes. Rock stars. I had forgotten what they could be like. No matter how famous they were, no matter how many young women wanted to sleep with them, deep down they were all incredibly insecure about their bloody hair.

"Stop it, you sound like my missus." The doors opened and deposited us in the lobby before I could respond, and we trudged outside to find that it was raining. He looked about for the porter, to see if we could borrow an umbrella, but he was distracted with helping an older couple to their cab. "Fuck." He hunched his shoulders and pulled up his coat collar, but in a few minutes, the carefully coiffed hair was ruined, plastered to his face. I couldn't help but laugh, though he threw me a dirty look.

As he examined the menu, I made suggestions as to what was good, the lentil bread and coconut chutney.

"You know, you don't have to get all veggie food just because I am. You can get lamb or whatever, I promise I won't meeeehhh at you."

"I don't fucking eat meat," I tossed back. As if I'd change my eating habits to impress any damn man.

"What, because of health reasons, or because of soppy, sentimental, loving animals reasons?" he teased.

"Because of ethical reasons, because of not wanting to overburden the resources of the planet reasons and because I really fucking hate the taste of it reasons," I retorted. "I am going to get a mango lassi for pudding, though, so you can just suck up and deal, vegan-boy."

He clicked his tongue at me disapprovingly then burst into snickering. "Alright, you're sound. You are, oddly, the most sound pornographer I've ever met."

"Because you've met so many pornographers."

"Well, I've read about them. And I've seen The People Vs Larry Flynt. And... well, I do spend a lot of time talking to music journalists, and you're actually pretty sound for a music journalist. And I fucking hate the British music press, so Christ, girl, take a compliment," he teased.

"Don't call me girl and I might," I sneered back, smiling to show I wasn't really cross. I liked sparring with him.

"And here I am, socialising with the Enemy."

"I would take that personally if I didn't think the NME had actually got slightly better since McNicholas left."

The waitress come, we ordered our meal and had another glass of wine as we were waiting for our takeaway. For such a small man, he certainly could put away the alcohol.

"Why are music journalists such a fucking miserable lot? Present company excepted of course."

"Ha!" I snorted.

"Well I'm not exactly having dinner with Atriedes or that idiot from The Wire, am I? That said, you're definitely the most attractive one - or rather, the only one without a rubbish free jazz beard."

"My free jazz beard is immense. I've got a bigger beard than all of them put together, it's just metaphorical," I insisted, deadpan, as I pretended to stroke my chin. He cackled, his hand going subconsciously to his own scrubby chin. "Fucking hate The Wire. Bastards went out of their way to deliberately ruin Next Step, and they nearly succeeded."

"How? I like hearing all this gossip about how cutthroat you lot all are, makes me feel better about it when they give my band another stitch-up." He put his face between his hands, his eyes glistening at the thought of gossip.

I leaned forward, resting my elbow on the table and lowering my voice. "They told all their staff writers and freelancers that they had to choose, them or us. No one could write for both. Considering they were the paying gig and we weren't... well, you can imagine what choice they made, and we didn't blame 'em."

"You didn't pay?" He seemed surprised. "But the quality of the writing was so high, I always assumed that it must have paid really well."

"No. There were maybe three paid staff positions, and a small rate for lead articles, but most of us did it for love."

"I suppose that's it, in any creative endeavor, that the kind of careerists who just churn it out will go for whoever pays best, leaving this kind of pool of artisanal people who do it because they genuinely care, for little or no money. Which is actually really iniquitous, if you think about it, and it means that, well, the whole thing gets slanted towards, you know, middle class fucks like me - don't think I don't know that. Because everyone else has to go and do something that pays."

"I don't know. It's not just the money, though obviously that is a factor if you can't make a living writing about the stuff that you love. There is just a really high burnout rate among people who really give a damn. Because it does grind you down, the sheer amount of shit you have to put up with."

"What, you mean like the sleaze and the corporate bullshit of it."

"No, I mean, literally, terrible, terrible music. So much of it. You get completely swamped, 20, 30 CDs a week, there's no way you can listen to it all, even if you wanted to. Which leaves you less time and words to go to bat for the artists you really really love. And so much of the shit you have to wade through, it's just soul-crushingly mediocre. Like, really terrible stuff you can laugh at, but it's the dullness and predictability of the bad stuff. And I don't know about you, but I just love music too damn much to listen to bad music. I refuse to tolerate it. I just expect better, of this thing that I love."

"Stop it!" he protested, throwing up his hands. "You're making me feel sorry for the British fucking music press and I think you're bastards and liars, the lot of you."

"Present company not excepted this time?"

"Present company always excepted, Fi." He grinned at me over the top of his wineglass as he took another sip. "But there must be some perks to it. I mean, you get advance copies of everything, right?"

"Yes. Whether you want them or not. I get so much crap you would not believe. Yet it's sometimes surprisingly difficult to get stuff you actually like. It was actually unbelievably tough to get your album, even after I said I was interviewing you."

"We didn't want anyone leaking it," he shrugged. "I suppose you take it for granted, you just get everything months before it comes out."

"You have no idea how the tight the deadlines are. Monthly magazines, you have to get your reviews filed nearly three months in advance."

"I always forget all that shit, no matter how many times our PRs remind me about it. It's so weird, hearing things from the other side." He shifted in his seat, studying me carefully over the rim of his wineglass. "If you get advance promos... have you got the new Boards of Canada album yet, then?"

"What, you've just complained about how people leak your album - then not thirty seconds later you're asking me to leak you someone else's?"

"I wasn't! I was just asking if you'd heard it."

"No one's heard it. I don't think it exists. Not outside their studio. I think Warp are just making it up. I mean, they've been saying for how many years, that there's a new Aphex Twin album? And there's no album. No one's actually heard a thing out of him. It's just rumours."

"You haven't heard anything else about it?"

I shook my head as I took another gulp of wine. "No. Well, I've heard bits and pieces of live stuff, but... alls I know is..." Something in my head clicked and I couldn't stop myself. "There were rumours, he was into field hockey players..."

Thom creased up, bending over sideways as he laughed. "So I applied, basically," he squeaked back, without missing a beat.

"He was gone the next day..."

"I went off with the team...."

"And it's like, he was gone. They were just like... It was so hush hush. They were so quiet about it." I paused as he collapsed in giggles again. "And then the next thing you know..."

"That is the last thing on earth I ever expected you to come out with. You just seem too young to know that. How old are you?" he demanded.

"That is none of your business, but I am old enough to have been in college and bought that album when it came out."

He did some quick mental calculations. "You're older than you look. That would explain all your 90s references, Autechre's Anti EP and Damien fucking Hirst. You're my vintage. I like that."

"Thanks... I think."

"You probably actually remember Thatcher unlike all these neo-Cons, getting nostalgic for something they didn't have to live through."

"Yup. Wish I didn't, but... Blighted our teenage years, huh? Learned the hard way, never trust a Tory. Though I don't know sometimes - I think the generation just below us, the ones who were just too young to be really affected by Thatcher, they just have this hazy nostalgic recollection of it, because everyone idealises their own youth."

"I fucking don't. Fuck childhood nostalgia. Being a child was awful, no fucking way I'd want to relive that again." He was about to say something else, when our food arrived. I tried to take out my wallet, but he waved it away and pulled out a credit card.

"At least let me get the wine."

"No need. Fully stocked minibar and fridge back at the hotel."

When we returned to the room, he rang down to hospitality and asked for some plates and cutlery, opened a second bottle of wine as we were waiting, then dished out our food on the low table in the outer room.

"Do you mind if I put some music on?"

"That depends."

"On what? I promise I won't play anything shit... anyway, you've got decent taste in music. You'll like what I play."

"No, I meant, actually, that depends on whether you actually have any intention of finishing the interview? Because if you put loud music on in the background, I won't be able to record it properly."

"Oh." He suddenly frowned as if he had completely forgotten that this was the plan. "I'm tired of talking... well, I'm not tired of talking, but I'm so tired of having to think." He paused, then smiled naughtily. "That said, if you wanted to ask me mindless questions about sex, now would be a good time."

It was my turn to explode with laughter, narrowly avoiding spilling curry down my front. "You are just so obsessed. You are just not going to rest until I ask you a question that you are offended by, are you?"

"I won't be offended, I promise. Come on, ask me something saucy."

"Forget it, let's just put some music on. But we're not putting your shit on, we're putting mine on," I insisted, pulling out my iPod and dialing through it before hooking it up to the stereo's speakers.

"No, you're gonna put on all shit like Busted and Britney Spears."

"I'm not. I'm gonna put on stuff you'll like. I promise."

He paused, tilting his head to one side to catch the music. "Who is this?"

"Zavoloka. Ukranian electronic artist."

"You're right. It's lovely," he agreed, then smirked at me again as I sat down. He had definitely perked up again now that he had some food in him, an impish grin dusted over his face. "Come on, ask me."

"Ask you what?"

"Come on, get out your little tape recorder and ask me, I dunno, whatever it was that you thought I'd get offended at."

Not this game again. I shook my head, rolled my eyes, then looked him straight in the eye. "Are you going to pose for me, then?" Now that we were getting along so well, I might as well try it on. It wasn't even the journalist in me, looking for a scoop. It was the artist in me, looking for a model - but also something childishly competitive he brought out in me, wanting to know how far I could push him.

His grin deepened, became positively malevolent. "Maybe."

"What kind of questions do you want me to ask you?"

Finally, he broke my gaze and reached for his wine. There was a definite sense of tension in the air, as if this was a game of chicken and one of us had to step back from the edge. "I don't know. Like... what do I like, in bed. And what I find attractive in women. And... I don't know to be honest. I just get the feeling that this is the one time in my life that I am ever going to be interviewed by a feminist porn magazine, and I think I should make the most of it. Like this could actually be quite... exciting. Sexy. Kinda."

I shrugged, finished another bite of my flowery curry and reached for my tape recorder. I turned it on, put it down in the middle of the table, and sat back. "Alright, what do you find most attractive in women?"

"Intelligence," he replied without missing a beat, as if he'd been thinking about it. "Banter. Repartee. I'm really attracted to a woman who can slightly unsettle me. Is that odd? I suppose it's quite freudian. I meet a lot of people who fawn over me, who flatter me, and I feel like I can never quite trust them. I like a slight edge of meanness? Not cruelty, per se, I'm not into cruelty. But I like a woman with whom I never entirely know where I stand. Because then oddly I feel like she's more being honest with me?" When he was drinking, he developed the slight hint of uptalk, so that every sentence seemed to sound like a question.

I felt a tiny chill go up my spine. If he hadn't just mentioned that he'd been talking to his partner before I arrived, I would have had the slight suspicion that he might have been flirting with me. But no. It was like a game. If he could tease, I could tease. "And what about you? What do you think is your most attractive feature?"

"Oh god, nothing," he snorted, frowning at the question. "I can't think of a thing about myself that I wouldn't change. I'd like to be six inches taller, I'd like my fucking eyes to be the same, I wish my hair were thicker and a better colour. I wish I wasn't so sickly pale, I wish I tanned instead of burning, I wish my nose wasn't crooked and it didn't have this weird little blunt bit at the end, I wish my teeth were straight, I wish my ears didn't stick out so bloody far, I wish I didn't have this protruding belly, and I wish it wasn't so fucking hairy. I wish my legs were nicer, longer and more shapely..."

I stared at him, taken aback. This man, this beautiful man sitting in front of me, was basically saying he wanted to change all of the things that I thought were unique and individual and attractive about him. "There's got to be something on your body that you don't hate."

He thought for some time about that, swilling the wine around his glass before finally taking a sip, savouring the taste of it on his tongue. "My mouth. Actually, I think my mouth is alright. Several girlfriends have told me that I have nice lips. And I'm... well, I'm generally pleased with the sounds that come out of it. It's taken me some time to fall back in love with the sound of my singing voice, but I think I'm there, I think I'm finally comfortable with it again."

Rock stars. I would never understand them. This man sitting in front of me, many people considered him the voice of a generation. He'd changed the way that people sung for the past fifteen years. And here he was, telling me that he had hated the sound of his voice. I shrugged and ventured, "You're alright, I suppose. A bit played out in the 90s, but..."

The look of outrage on his face was priceless. It sometimes took a careful jibe to tell false modesty from the real thing. But then he relaxed. "No, you're absolutely right. Even I was tired of the sound of my voice in 1998, 99. Every time I turned on the radio, I heard half a dozen people trying to sound like me. It did my fucking head in. I spent the next five years trying not to sound like myself, slicing and dicing my voice electronically, manipulating it, trying to make it not sound like me, like everyone else doing me. It wasn't until I did my solo album, and I just kind of got that shit out of my system, that I went back to being comfortable with being me again."

"I can't even begin to imagine," I whispered, picking up the bottle of wine and pouring us both another glass.

He shook his head, looking spooked. "No. This is all getting a bit heavy. Go on, ask me another stupid question about sex or something."

I took another sip of wine to fortify myself. This wasn't exactly easy for me, either. Yet still, I blundered on. It was part of my job to ask awkward questions. "Alright, what's your favourite position."

"Ha! I've been waiting for that one." His face cracked into a grin again. "Um... woman on top, I think. You can say I'm a bit feminist that way."

"Or a bit lazy."

"Ha ha, that too." He paused to shovel rice into his mouth. "That is the second best question I've been asked today, after the favourite tree thing."

"I thought you said you liked the parallel worlds question best."

"Oh yeah. No, that one was really good." He paused, tilting his head to the side again as if thinking. "Sometimes that's the nice thing about being drunk. That right now, we've constructed a parallel world where these questions aren't awkward, they're actually quite saucy. Fun, like a game of Truth or Dare is."

He went to spear a piece of naan bread and dipped it into the dal, smiling at me as if he was being really suave, but on the way between the plate and his mouth, he somehow missed, and emptied the precariously balanced load straight down the front of his shirt.

"Fuck!" he swore, mopping at it with his napkin. "Fuck, no. This is my favourite shirt, as well. It's going to fucking stain, isn't it?"

"It's turmeric, you're out of luck. Well... we could get the rest of the dal, and put the shirt in it, just dye the whole thing yellow?" I suggested helpfully. "At least it wasn't red wine."

"This is worse than red wine. It looks like I've shat myself."

"Oops." Well, there went my appetite. "I hope you weren't planning on wearing that shirt tomorrow."

Suddenly his face brightened with mischief as he raised his eyes towards me. "It was you that suggested we get Indian food, wasn't it? I bet this was part of your cunning plan, get curry all down my shirt, to get me out of my clothes so you could take pictures of my flabby nipples."

"How do I know if your nipples are flabby or not? I haven't seen them," I shrugged nonchalantly, trying to play it cool. The way he kept coming back to the photography idea made me think that he might actually do it, so long as I didn't push him. But it was almost like he wanted me to push him, to take away the responsibility for making the decision, so he could blame me for it if he was uncomfortable.

Slowly, he unbuttoned his shirt and peeked beneath. "Fuck, it's all down my chest." He looked down his shirt, then looked up at me again expectantly. "You're not telling me to take my shirt off, then start whipping out your camera...?"

I didn't move. "It's up to you. It's all down to what you want." Neither of us moved. "Would you prefer if I were lecherous and bawdy and tried to cajole you into it?"

"I... don't know." He started to unbutton his shirt, slowly, teasingly, looking up at me between every button, almost as if he were testing me. "I keep thinking, like - shit, this is going to sound so arrogant. I keep thinking, like, you don't fancy me, and kind of resenting you for it a little bit, and then remembering the whole asexual thing. But... then I remember that you want to take nude photos of me, and I get really confused."

"I thought you were comfortable with complexity." Who was this strangely calm drunk woman who was not rising to his obvious bait?

"What's in it for you? Are you just doing this for a job? Are you just trying to make a fast buck off me? Are you going to sell them to tabloids, the minute you get my clothes off?"

I shook my head. "Fuck no. That's the last thing I'd do."

"What is your angle, then? Why do you want to do this?" A pause. "You do want to do this, right? You're not playing with me, just to flatter me?"

"Look, I'm an artist. I enjoy beauty, even if I don't... want anything else. I like looking. It's one of the few sensual pleasures that I have left. Looking. It took me a long time to learn that, that looking and wanting, they're not the same thing. I used to get them confused. A lot. And get myself into situations I did not have the capacity to handle. So let's just say... making art, photographing beauty, it's my way of constructing parallel worlds, where I have a safe place to explore those kinds of feelings that I don't get to experience. In this world. Romance is my science fiction. I see you, your face, your body, not as sexy, but as beautiful. And the only thing I really care about in this world is beauty. Wanting to create it, because I can't have it."

"What do you mean, because you can't have it? Can't have beauty?"

"Well, I mean, look at me." I had the sudden urge to take off my glasses and clean them on the hem of my shirt so I couldn't see him any more. It was that childish belief, if you can't see someone, they can't see you.

"I see an almost intimidatingly clever woman, sitting on the floor of my hotel room. That's what I see."

"Intimidating?" I asked, and held his gaze.

He unbuttoned the last button, then let his shirt fall open, so that I could see the slight curve of his pale belly through the gap. "Alright, I'm probably going to regret this hugely, but I know I will regret it more if I don't do it. I will always wonder what if. I'm going to go in the lavatory, and clean myself up, and fix my fucking flattened hair. And then I'm going to come back out here, and I want you to take some saucy photos of me."

I tried hard not to smile, but my face lit up. "OK."

"I want you to..." He seemed to stumble over his words as if he didn't know how to ask. "I want to see myself through your eyes. I want you to make me beautiful."


	4. Nude

And with that, he walked away and left me, shocked, reeling in fact, wondering what on earth to make of it. I'd not actually thought this far, as I'd never in a million years expected him to say yes. Photographing men, that was something I did have experience with. It was something I'd taken to completely naturally when I got that first email from Incandescent, looking for female artists and photographers looking to contribute. But Thom was hardly just an ordinary man...

No, fuck it. He was. This wasn't really any different from hiring models at art schools, or recruiting men I liked the look of in Camden Market. He was just a man. The same form, the same biology. I knew how to do this. Taking a deep breath, I poured myself another glass of wine, then dug in my bag for the consent form. Taking my camera from the bag, I read the light levels in the room and cursed. The low mood lighting was great for interviews, not so great for photographs. I cast my eyes around and realised the only two places with good spot lighting were the leather sofa he'd been lying on during the interview - and the beds. Well, we could start on the sofa. I moved the table back to give me some room, then extended my tripod and started to set it up.

He was taking ages, I could hear the splash of water in the bathroom, and wondered if he was actually taking a shower. Still, it gave me time to think, to try and put together scenarios, poses in my mind. I was used to costumes, props, having some kind of fantasy in my mind, but for this, I'd have to think on my feet. Then I picked up my iPod and changed the music, dialing up a more beat-oriented, slow, pounding playlist, the grinding basslines of Subeena and Ikonika and Cooly G.

Finally, after what felt like an hour, but was only 10 minutes by the clock, he emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in a huge, fluffy white robe that would have been a normal length on anyone else, but came down almost to his ankles. His hair, I had to admit, was perfect, studiedly sloppy with wisps standing up in little arcs. The expression on his face, half fear, half excitement, sent a shudder down my spine. If I could capture that look, that quizzical, hesitating, yet quivering look, his lower lip defiantly stuck slightly out, his eyebrows arched defensively but his eyes vulnerable - that was the photo I wanted.

"Here," I said quietly, handing him the sheet of paper. Our legal contract. The boundaries of what we would and wouldn't do, signed, sealed and delivered. "You need to sign the release form. You can write in, what you will and won't consent to. It's already in there that you have right of refusal on the photos, that I can't sell any of them on without your permission."

"That's pretty generous, thank you." He took the paper from me and carried it over to the desk, scribbling on it before handing it back to me. I looked down at his signature and saw that he had written, in capital letters, YOU CAN'T USE ANY PICTURES OF MY COCK, and underlined it twice. "Do I get a copy of that?"

"Yeah, I thought I saw a fax machine in the other room? I'll make you a copy. Make yourself comfortable in the meanwhile."

When I came back with the copy, he had poured himself another glass of wine and sprawled himself across the bed, staring up at the ceiling with the decidedly unsexy expression of a sacrificial lamb.

"I don't think we need to leap straight into bed," I teased him, trying to make him more comfortable. I had already flipped into photographer mode, I wasn't even thinking about my own reactions. The nerves were gone, I had become a camera. "Come up to the sofa, we'll just do a couple of setting shots to start with."

"Can I bring my wine?"

"If you like. Props are good, if they make you more at ease."

He settled into the sofa, curling up in the corner, holding his wine glass like a security blanket, staring at me defiantly. "Promise me just one thing."

"What?"

"Well, two things really. Promise you won't make me look like a fucking madman, and promise you won't make me look... cute."

"Cute?" I smiled, perplexed. It seemed like such a harmless word, but he practically spat it out.

"You know. Small, harmless, fluffy, like a small woodland creature. That thing where girls want to pick you up and put you in their pocket."

"Cute and fluffy? No, I don't see you that way. Small, yes, but much more spiky and aggressive. Like a defiant hedgehog."

"Hedgehog," he sighed wistfully. "My mum used to call me hedgehog. Not exactly sexy."

"Don't worry," I assumed him with a suggestively raised eyebrow. "I won't make girls want to pick you up and put you in their pockets, I'll make girls want to pick you up and put you in their vaginas."

A deeply worried expression flashed across his face for a moment, before he decided I was joking, and laughed dryly. "Do you want me to look at the camera, or no?"

"Well, look at me to start with."

"Look at me, not the camera," he parroted. "Just like doing TV." I focused and took a couple of practice shots, measuring the light, and he smiled, seeming to relax at the sound of the lens. He must do this all the time, he was actually quite natural in front of the camera.

"You can smile, it's alright," I assured him, looking over the camera, then through the lens again.

"I've got fucked up teeth, I don't like showing them."

"It's the imperfections that change someone from being merely pretty to being properly beautiful. Be imperfect for me, Thom."

That got him to smile, his face lighting up as I snapped a few more shots. My camera loved him, his porcelain skin so pale in the halogen light.

"Do you want to unfasten the robe? Or let it fall open a bit?"

"Not really, no."

"Thom." I gave him a stern schoolmarm look over the top of the camera and he blushed.

"Sorry." He writhed on the sofa, pulling his legs up and arranging them. I noticed he was still wearing his jeans, so that he was completely swathed in fabric from head to toe. "Look, you do it. I don't think I know how to be sexy on demand."

Coming out from behind the camera, I moved towards him, tucking my hair behind my ear as I adjusted his clothes. That trick, the old artist's trick, had happened, and I no longer saw him as a man, I saw him as a field of lines and planes, light and dark, like I was composing a picture. I loosened his robe like I was undressing a child, left it still slightly tied, as if daring the eye to mentally tug at it, then slipped the robe slightly off his shoulder to reveal a tantalising expanse of skin, his neck and the top of his chest, stopping just short of his nipple. When I got back behind the camera and started snapping again, he was staring at me with an even, smoldering gaze.

"Yeah, you do know how to be sexy on demand, looking at me like that. Come on..."

He lay back into the pillow, relaxing, his body language becoming less restrained, and then he smiled naughtily, and pulled the robe open, exposing one soft brown nipple, ringed with dark golden hair, lit up by the halogen. For a moment, only a moment, just long enough to snap one frame, he gave me some proper smolder, but then he laughed and crumpled. "I can't do it, I can't take it seriously."

"You don't have to take is seriously. Sex is funny. The ability to laugh at yourself is very sexy."

"My flabby nipples are not sexy. No matter what you say."

"Oh, I don't know about that..." I winked, then put my serious photographer face back on. "Look, pro-tip here. The Heat Magazine pose. Works wonders. Arch your back slightly, yup, like that, and put your shoulders back, it tightens the muscles. Now put your head forward, and dip your chin down. Takes ten years and twenty pounds off you, I promise."

He held the pose for a minute or two as I snapped, then started laughing again. "I feel ridiculous."

"You don't look ridiculous. Here..." Unfastening the latch, I took the camera off the tripod and brought up the last few photos on the digital display. "Look."

At first he shook his head and waved his hand in refusal, but his vanity got the better of him. "Wow! Blimey. Awwww, that's not me. Where's the bags under my eyes?"

"A good angle, and some spot-lighting, works wonders," I told him shifting the camera into my hand to do some close-up work. "Now... unfasten the robe." He did what I told him this time, looking at me more like he trusted me. "Yeah, put your leg up, and rest your arm on it - yup, you can have the wine glass if you like." I pulled the robe free, letting it drape across the sofa, leading the eye up across his stomach, the trail of hair leading down across his slight belly under the waistband of his jeans. "Ooh, slightly cross expression, yes, I like that. Dip your chin, remember."

"Nah, it makes my fucking bad eye go funny."

"It's actually incredibly sexy. Intense. Gives you real cat eyes, like Rimbaud."

That didn't make him smolder, it just made him laugh and look down. "Oh, shit. I'm slouching, why didn't you tell me. My fucking pot belly - please tell me you're going to airbrush out the folds of fat on my fucking belly."

"No way. See, some girls..." I lowered my voice to a whisper. "...secretly find that a massive turn on."

"Really." His face was adorably perplexed, so I snapped again. "I will never understand women in a million years."

"You know what would be really great?" I rested my chin on the top of the camera, feeling slightly more bold, smiling slyly as I asked him. "If you undid the top button of your jeans?"

"I'm not getting my cock out," he insisted with a smirk.

"No, no, I don't want that. Just do it really subtly, and then look up at me, just like an invitation?" He managed to hold the pose for about ten seconds, then burst into giggles.

"You're really dirty, aren't you?" His eyes flashed.

"I just really like details. The detail are so important. Now, arch your hips a bit so the zipper comes in the light... yeah, perfect." Snap. "And now put your head back and close your eyes?" The other side of the robe slipped off as he did so, leaving his shoulders bare. Snap, snap, snap. He moved his hips slightly and the zipper inched down, revealing the tiny glimpse of shorts beneath. OK, he was enjoying this. Barely daring to breath, I slid the focus in slightly tighter. Yes, definitely enjoying this, there was a distinct shadow against the lighter fabric of his pants.

He laughed and relaxed again. I was starting to understand his rhythm - I had about ten seconds to get my shot before he became self conscious and started to giggle. "I don't even want to know, what parallel world you are constructing, to find a 40-something father of 2 so worthy of... Except, you don't even think like that, do you?" He paused, swinging his legs off the sofa and sitting up. "I'm sorry, I've got to take a little break, have another sip of wine."

"Take your time. There's no rush." I picked up my own glass and sipped at it, sitting back on my heels.

"Is this, not, like... tense... for you at all? Or are you just working?"

I took a deep breath, centering myself back in my own body, and feeling a light sweat break out under the hairline on my neck. "I'm just working. This is art, for me. Work"

"Do you have, like... a story in your head, when you're doing this? Do you have a script or are you just... shooting whatever?"

"Well, not a script so much as a scenario. I'm very visual, I see things in images, not in words."

He frowned, perplexed. "That's a really weird thing for a writer to say." But then he suddenly brightened. "But yeah, I kinda get what you mean. I get flashes, when I'm writing sometimes, that I see images, I see these kinds of bursts, and then sometimes I really struggle to write them down. But I see the image really clearly. And that's when I draw, instead of writing."

I nodded. "I do the same thing. I have to kind of turn things around in my head, run through it a couple of times, watch it from every angle, like I'm rotating the emotions in my mind, like those computer-generated architectural blueprints where you can see every view of a shopping centre or a house."

"Rotating emotions in your mind," he repeated, musing on it. "What emotions are you rotating with me?"

I narrowed my eyes at him, then shook my head. "Just images. Just flashes."

"So you're not constructing a parallel world where..." He bit his lower lip so enticingly that I couldn't help but snap the button on my camera. "Where you and I are lovers?"

I didn't react. It was like he wanted me to react to that, either way, confession or denial, but I did neither. "You're not making love to me, Thom. You're making love to the camera."

"I have a funny feeling that's the same thing. You are your camera."

"A camera doesn't have emotions."

"I bet you do, though." He sipped his wine as I shook my head dismissively. "A camera doesn't have emotions, but a photographer does. They say a camera doesn't lie, but a skilled photographer certainly can. Those pictures don't look like me. They came from somewhere."

"You have a twisted idea of what you look like. You want to destroy everything about you that is physically beautiful, like you want to fuck up and mangle your beautiful voice on your records."

That hit a nerve. He closed his eyes and seemed to gather himself. "What do you want from me?"

"I told you. To take your picture."

"I meant, emotionally."

"I already told you. I don't have... emotions." Fuck, I was drunker than I had meant to be, if I was confessing this to a stranger.

"Everybody has emotions. You're not a vulcan."

Star Trek geek. Figured. It disarmed me, made me feel safer with him. "OK, of course I have emotions. But I don't have romantic emotions, like you mean. That's what I meant, when I said was asexual. It's not even about sex, really. Sex is just mechanics, no big deal. Insert Tab A into Slot B. But I don't feel... I don't experience love. Especially romantic love. It's like I'm just blind to it, like colour blind people literally can't see a difference between red or green."

"I don't understand. What, you don't feel it, or you just can't tell it apart from other kinds of love?"

"You know how some people are atheists, and they say just don't have any conception of, let alone experience of, god or spirituality or anything. I'm that way with love. I don't feel it. At all. I can't feel it. It's like, I see other people walking around, acting as if they have this pair-bonding glue that bonds them together, whether that's love, or sexual attraction or whatever. Well, I don't feel it. I never have. So you are safe with me. I am not going to try to seduce you. There is no point."

The expression on his face had changed slowly, from teasing, to disbelief, to something that looked like genuine pity. "I can't imagine..."

"I don't want your pity. I don't need it. This is just how I am." My defiance covered years of hurt, but I could not stand the way he was looking at me.

Without a sound, he slipped off the sofa onto his knees, shuffling across the few feet of floor that separated him from me, and wordlessly put his arms around me, laying his head against my shoulder and just squeezing. I felt awkward, I felt odd. I wasn't sure how he expected me to respond, if he wanted me to put my arms around him and hug him back, but I didn't want him to get the wrong idea. Everything seemed to be going wrong, this was not how I'd wanted this to turn out. The young men I normally photographed, they posed, they took their money, and they went. Sometimes they tried it on with me, but usually a brief reminder that they were half my age was enough to put them off. This, this display of emotion, it embarrassed me and I wanted him to stop.

He must have felt me stiffen, as he pulled away slightly and looked up at me. "You're so hard."

"Hard and dense, yes, I know." I almost wanted to pack my camera up and go home, this was too difficult. My subjects, they weren't supposed to get at me like this. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything."

"No! I'm sorry I... I shouldn't have pushed at you. I..." He reached for the bottle of wine to refill our glasses, and found it empty. "Shit. Do you want another drink?"

"Yes."

Standing up, he shuffled over to the fridge, his bathrobe trailing after him like a medieval cloak, then opened our third bottle of wine.

"Look, do you wanna not do this now?" I asked quietly.

"No!" he replied immediately, turning towards me with an almost indignant expression. "Or rather, I'm still game if you are. Unless you don't want..."

I pulled my composure back together and stood up, fussing with my camera.

"I was kind of... enjoying it," he confessed. "It did actually make me feel quite, well... powerful. Sexual. But that's in my head. I'll try to stop projecting that on you."

I took a sip of the wine he handed me and started to feel calmer. "Do you want to try some poses on the bed, then?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

He stretched out on his bed as I set up on the other, the tripod on the floor between us, though, with the brighter spotlight, I might be able to risk some hand work. Rolling over like a cat, he stretched his hand towards me and smiled through his hair. "How do you want me to lie?"

"Like that is just fine. Do you want to take the robe off?"

"Oh," he moaned. "It's warm. It's bloody cold in this room."

"It's not, you know."

"That's because you're wearing a great big jumper and I'm topless." He sat up to push the robe off, then rubbed his arms briskly. "Tell me how to pose. How do you want me? Arrange me."

"Just lie back and try to relax," I directed, taking the camera off its tripod to shoot him from above.

"Lie back and think of England, right?" He stretched lazily, the muscles in his chest shifting so that I could see his ribs. "I'm really trying to suck in my stomach, to look like those men on the cover of Mens Health."

"They starve themselves, you know. Dehydrate themselves and do their metabolism terrible damage, in order to make their muscles pop. They often faint between shoots, they're really not much cop at all. Nothing healthy about it."

"Blimey." He put his arms behind his head, smiling up at me with a slightly jauntier expression as I gently leaned my knee on his bed to get a better angle. "You could, like, straddle me, like the photographer in Blow Up?"

"Not a chance." I retreated to the floor again. "Do you want to push your jeans just slightly off your hips?"

"What, so the top of my pants show, like a rapper?"

"No. I want to see if you've got those... lines." I gestured to the curve between my own hips and thighs.

"Haha. Not in about 15, 20 years. I used to, when I was younger. But no more." Still, he slid his jeans lower, revealing a lot more of his lower belly, and the thatch of light brown hair that covered it. "Do you want me to take them off?"

"I want you to do what you're comfortable with."

He rolled over towards the nightstand where he'd left his glass of wine, then, giving up on the glass, picked up the bottle and swigged from it. Then, slowly, carefully, he stood up and pulled his jeans off before hopping back onto the bed, curling in a ball like a little boy before arranging himself carefully. There really was no physically hiding it now, how much he was physically enjoying the shoot.

"Are you OK with that?" I asked carefully, glancing at the shadowy outline of his cock against his calvins.

"Well." He grinned mischievously. "We'll see how the photos look? If it's really undignified, you won't publish them, right?"

"You've got it in writing, it's your call."

He unrolled himself, and half turned towards me as if displaying himself, then burst into giggles again. His face flushed slightly, and I wondered how drunk he was, if he was really actually in a condition to be consenting to this. But now he was toying with me, pushing the waistband of his pants lower, as if daring me. I smiled back at him, but kept snapping the camera. Was he really going to... Christ, was he really going to... suddenly the head of his cock, very erect, appeared just under the elastic. It seemed like he deliberately pulled the fabric back, giving me a very clear view, then cackled with laughter and rolled back in a ball just after he heard the click of the lens.

"You know I can't use that."

"I know, ha ha. I like this. I like knowing I can ruin your shots." Then, just as suddenly, he rolled over onto his stomach, grinning at me impishly as he half buried his face in the blanket, so that just the hint of his smile showed. My eyes flickered lower as he lazily ground himself against the mattress, looking at the slight mound of his skinny arse. And then his face took on a really naughty expression as he reached down, hooked his thumbs under the waistband and slowly wriggled it off. I kept snapping. I didn't know what else to do as he kicked off his pants and lay there, his genitals hidden by the blankets, but his face turned towards me with an expression of pure filth. I moved closer, took a wide-angle shot from the side, then photographed him from above, my eyes lingering on the porcelain whiteness of his tight but slightly bony arse. It wasn't a man I was seeing before me, it was just lines and planes, I reminded myself, mapping out the composition and then framing the shot, highlighting the trail of hair leading up the backs of his thighs to disappear between his legs.

As I went behind him, he tried to turn round to watch me, then realised that he couldn't, not without showing himself. "Can you pass me my robe, please?"

"No."

"Bitch."

"You got yourself into this, now you get yourself out."

At that, he rolled himself over, onto his back, raising himself up on his elbows as if daring me to look at him. I lowered the camera, trying very hard not to stare at his cock, completely erect, rising towards me, his balls nestled like two small eggs in a nest of pale brown hair. "Aren't you going to photograph me?"

"Do you want me to?"

The look he gave me was absolutely the one, half defiant, half vulnerable, mouth parted, lower lip thrust out, his eyes blazing, his chest heaving. It was that look I wanted, as much as the pale white expanse of his skin and his proudly arched cock. I snapped. And again. And then I bent down and picked up his robe and tossed it to him.

"I can't use these, you know."

"I know." Slowly, he wrapped the robe around him, then lay back again. "Can I just... I dunno. If I..." He adjusted the robe, opening one side of it, leaving it trailing across the bed, then moved the other side to just cover his genitals, but leaving his chest and his hip and the top of his thigh exposed. Then he pushed himself back into position, raising himself on his elbows, angling his hips slightly as he arched his back and he gave me that look again. He had to know what he was doing. He had to know the effect that smoldering stare had. I felt mildly played, but the photos were too good to be bothered for long. "And then, if I..." He slipped his hand under the edge of the fabric with a wicked smile, and I could see him start to stroke. "Do you want to see?" he whispered, his eyes slits. I lowered the camera as he pushed the fabric out of the way. "You can keep taking photos if you like... it kinda turns me on."

Standing stock still at the end of the bed, camera pressed to my face, I carried on shooting, even as he wrapped his hand around his cock, jerked it up and down, then his face contorted, his his breaths grew shallow, then finally, he shuddered, and he ejaculated all across his chest.

Did that just happen? Did that really just happen? Even as he lay there, just catching his breath, I had the urge to roll back through my camera's memory card and check that what had, really, actually just occurred.

"Do you think you can find me a tissue?" he finally asked, looking around to check he hadn't made a mess of the bedspread.

"Yeah, sure." I walked through into the bathroom and retrieved the whole box, though I took my camera with me, almost afraid to let it out of my sight in case he palmed my memory card or erased the images. "Here." I pulled out a few tissues and handed them to him.

As he cleaned himself up, I looked around the hotel room as if noticing it for the first time, so intent I'd been on the lines and planes of boyflesh on the bed in front of me. And then I saw the clock. It had just gone one. "Fuck. Is that really the time?" The last tube had left an hour ago.

His gaze followed mine to the clock. "I'd offer to drive you home, but I'm plastered," he confessed. "Though, you can stay here if you like."

"That's kind of you, but... there's a night bus."

"I'd like you to stay, if that counts for anything."

I considered my options as I packed up my camera and folded up the tripod and slid both into my bag, locking the compartment they were kept in with a combination lock. It would be an hour and a half on a freezing cold and rowdy night bus, and I desperately needed the toilet. How much wine had we drunk? As I excused myself and made my way back into the bathroom, the strains of the music followed me uncomfortably. An old Insides track. 'I hate lovers... I hate the way they go to the bathroom in shifts, after they've fucked...' What an apposite choice of songs to come up now.

When I returned to the bedroom, Thom was swaddled up in his robe again, like an old man. "Yeah, my turn. Make yourself at home - you can have the other bed if you like." So he'd decided that I was staying, gesturing with his chin.

Turning towards the wall, even though he'd left the room, I extracted my bra without taking my large sweater off, then slipped out of my skirt, folding both and leaving them on my nightstand. He was right, it was cold in the room, I just hadn't noticed in my excitement, so I climbed in between the sheets of the spare bed. What other choice did I have? Well, there was always the night bus. but faced with a long, cold trip, or a warm bed, the bed won out. But even as I lay down, I felt myself too tense to even think about sleeping, every muscle in my body still tight. I closed my eyes, and the room spun, more with excitement than with drink, though I had had an awful lot of wine.

I heard the door to the bathroom open, then close, and there was the soft patter of feet and the click of light switches as I heard him move about the room, turning things off. "Do you want me to turn the music off?"

"No... but can you switch it to a playlist called the Expanding Universe?"

"Laurie Spiegel?" he asked, pleased.

"It helps me to sleep."

"I love that piece." I heard the click of my iPod, then the music changed. The footsteps came back closer towards the bed, then just stopped, but I heard no rustling of sheets. I opened my eyes a crack to see him standing between the two beds, looking down at me with an odd expression. But then he seemed to shrug, as he doffed his huge white robe, and crawled beneath the covers of his own bed. The music flowed through the room, eliminating the need to talk, and I let it take me, washing my thoughts away. He switched out the last of the lights, the halogen spot by his bed, and the room became pitch black, but his voice rang out over the music.

"Are you asleep?"

"Yes."

"No you're not, you're as wound up and jangled as I am. I don't know if this music makes it better or worse. I always think of it as really meditative and ambient until I put it on."

"But the record starts off quite upbeat, and then slowly takes you deeper and slower and more relaxed."

"It's the fluidity that really gets me. The way that music which is so controlled and so precise can at the same time flow so naturally. It always reminded me of glaciers, or pack ice on a river, something very orderly, but very chaotic."

"No, it's the early solar system," I mused sleepily. "Plasma coalesces to protons and electrons, particles coalesce to atoms, hydrogen fuses to helium, and all the matter of the universe just cooling and condensing, and swirling, great spiral arms of the Milky Way, flat discs spinning together faster and faster until they ignite and become suns, planets, lumps of rock."

"It's quite terrifying, when you put it like that. That we're all just on the surface of this rock which is hurtling through space."

"It's not terrifying, it's calming. The order, the precision, elliptical orbits, gravity and centrifugal force perfectly balanced, the heat of the earth's core, the cold of space combining perfectly, the cooling crust, continental drift..." I was so tired I wasn't even sure what I was saying any more, letting my voice just drift off into the music.

His sheets rustled, noisily, like he was turning over. I wanted to tell him to just switch off and go to sleep, but he seemed so restless. "I'm cold," he finally announced. "And I really hate sleeping alone."

It twisted like a knife in my gut. What on earth did he expect me to do about that? I should have chosen the night bus. It started to strike me, what a dodgy situation this was. Half an hour, I'd felt so much at ease with him that I'd watched him masturbate in front of me, but now I felt vaguely imposed upon.

"It's perfectly warm in my bed," I insisted. Bad move, I realised as soon as I'd said it. There was a huge rustling of sheets, then footsteps, and then the weight of another body on my mattress as he tugged at my blankets to get under them. "Oi," I protested, moving away, rolling over to the far side of the bed which was, actually, quite cold.

"You're right, it is warmer here." Nervousness cracked in his voice, despite his attempt at a jaunty tone.

"Please don't do this. Please don't ask me to be someone I'm not."

"I just want you to hold me."

"Don't squeeze me; I hate being touched." I stayed where I was; I didn't even reach out.

"Even if you touch me? Even if you're in control? You're always in control, aren't you?"

I said nothing, glad that the pitch darkness of the room hid the fear in my face. I wasn't afraid of him, I was just afraid that if I started touching him, I wouldn't be able to stop.

"OK, I'm sorry. I made a mistake. I shouldn't have presumed..." The blankets rustled, and I felt his weight shift on the mattress.

"Wait, no." Some demon made try to stop him, and I reached out blindly, and placed my hand on the side of his chest. He felt warm, and solid, and real. I was so used to looking, always looking, I had forgotten what it was like to touch. I moved my hand, stiff but probing, feeling with my fingertips as the hardness of his ribs gave way to the soft fuzz of hair. It had been so long since I'd done this, I had forgotten what skin felt like against my own.

A hand appeared on top of mine, reassuring, a thumb stroking my fingers gently as he moved my hand. I had been expecting him to push it down, towards his groin, but he pulled it up, across his chest, towards his neck, finally leaving it to rest in the hollow of his shoulder. I lay stiffly, waiting for something to happen, but he made no other move, his breaths growing shallower, more relaxed. I inched closer, and extended my other arm, touched hair, thick with styling product, and tried to smooth it down. An ear, surprisingly soft, the downy tickle of beard. Face, cheekbones, lips which moved to reach for me, depositing a small kiss on my fingertips.

"Do we really have to do this?" I asked.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want," his whispered, dropping into the lowest register of his voice.

He was so warm I found myself pulling closer against the chill, like some long forgotten animal instinct. His face was so close to mine I could feel his breath against my cheek. As he turned his head towards me I felt his lips brush my skin, and moved my mouth towards his. Lips nibbling, his beard surprisingly soft against my cheek, his tongue tasting of wine as he found his way into my mouth. But as his arms snaked around my waist, I came to my senses.

I pulled away abruptly. "Stop it."

"Sorry," he murmured, though he deposited another small kiss on my chin, on my cheek, rubbing his face against mine.

"Please. Let sleeping dogs lie. That part of me is just dormant. Maybe extinct. Without the emotions, there really is no reason to bother."

"I want to wake you up. I want to make you bother again."

"You really don't."

"Why? I have a feeling you'd be like a volcano. So much heat trapped under that crust, just waiting to explode."

I snorted derisively. "More like a glacier, grinding everything mercilessly in my way."

"The glaciers are melting, haven't you heard? Global warming."

I lay in the dark, silent, listening to his breathing, feeling the warmth of his skin even through my clothes. Finally, I spoke, very slowly, in what I hoped was a warning tone. "If I really was a volcano waiting to explode? Would you really wanna be in the way?"

"I might take that chance."

"I'd break you."

"I'm tougher than I look." The nervousness in his voice did not instill confidence. "Or are you trying to scare me off?"

"Thom, you seem to see me as a challenge, and you don't understand. There is no challenge. It's not an insult. I just don't want... this. Please just go to sleep. Or I'm going, night bus or no." In another instant, I was going to bring up the girlfriend and the children, but I didn't want to go there myself. Who knew what arrangements they had, if they weren't married. And maybe, just maybe, there was a part of me that didn't want to think about them, either, that felt as much flattered and intrigued as I felt besieged.

But he merely sighed, and loosened, but did not release his grip around my waist, moving, shifting, then finally laying his head against my chest to sleep. I pulled back and kissed his forehead gently. My head was really spinning now. I felt intensely ambivalent, like I couldn't breathe with him holding me, but at the same time, I didn't want to let him go. Stiffly, awkwardly, I raised my hand, intending first to push him away, but then, instead, I twined my fingers in his hair, stroking gently. His breaths grew short and even, he was already asleep. Thank fuck we hadn't done anything, he was probably just drunk and slap happy and would regret it intensely in the morning.


	5. Approval

I woke with the nagging sense of unease that wasn't a hangover yet, but would probably blossom into one in a few hours. There was a strange scent in my nostrils, not unpleasant, just incredibly unfamiliar. This was not my pillow. In fact, it was not a pillow at all, it was warm and smooth and slightly furry. For a moment, I tried to puzzle out why there was a man's chest beneath my cheek, then slowly my memories of the previous night came seeping back. There wasn't just a man's chest beneath my face, there was a man's torso between my arms and a man's arm around my back.

"Oh my god," I muttered, trying to extract myself, my arm accidentally brushing against his semi-erect cock.

The man stirred, and I felt a hand clasp me, tentatively exploring, then finally tangling itself in the back of my hair, stroking me gently. I raised my head and turned around, trying to keep the horror out of my eyes as I observed him carefully, trying to read his mood and his intentions.

Raising his head carefully, he peered at me from under his long fringe like a small, slightly worried woodland creature. "Fiona."

Well, he remembered my name, that was a good start. I cast my mind back through the fogginess of the wine. No, I'd not fucked him. That was a relief. "How are you feeling? Do you have a wretched hangover? You deserve one, Thomas." The formality of his full name felt like a shield against the intimacy of our embrace.

With great effort, he closed his eyes again and made a face. "Oh god, I was massively badly behaved last night, wasn't I? I... can't believe the way that I acted. I don't know what got into me. Do you absolutely hate me?"

I stared at him for a long moment, before deciding that hate wasn't quite the right word. Irritation, confusion, unease, yes. But hate? "No," I sighed, wondering if I should make more of an effort to disentangle myself. Actually the gentle thrum of his fingers in my hair felt quite nice. "I'm kind of weirdly flattered, to be honest."

"Good."

"You're a fucking nightmare, drunk," I informed him, wondering if he was going to apologise, or try to atone in any way for his friskiness the previous night.

"I'm a nightmare sober, too."

"Nah, you're oddly charming, in a spiky sort of way, little hedgehog." I laughed, to show him I bore him no ill will. In fact, I wondered how much he remembered, if I should simply draw a veil across the entire evening.

"I am so... I can't imagine what you must think of me," he murmured, opening his eyes again and fixing me with that asymmetrical gaze. But though his voice was all contriteness, his hand was still on the back of my neck, tracing little figure eights as his touched deepened, massaging me first absent-mindedly, then slowly more insistently.

"Oh please don't start this again," I snorted, pulling away from him and attempting to detach myself from the blankets.

"Shit, I'm so sorry," he apologised again, untwining his fingers from my hair, but as he pulled away, his lower lip quivered slightly, his eyes sliding down my face with that slightly stupid expression that usually meant a man was about to try to kiss me.

"Knock it off. Have a morning wank or whatever," I tossed back to his disappointed face as I picked my discarded clothes off the nightstand and walked through into the bathroom.

I stared at myself in the mirror, trying to work out what it was he saw in this bedraggled woman that he could possibly be interested in, then shook my head and washed my face. Dragging his comb through my hair, I wrapped it in a loose ponytail then took some toothpaste and rubbed it across my teeth with my finger to mask my stale wine-breath. Sexy was the last thing I'd have called myself. I poured myself a glass of water from the tap, drank it, then took a deep breath to steel myself to walk back out and collect my things.

He was up again, wrapped in his long white robe, fussing with the kettle on the desk. "Do you want a cup of tea?" he offered, and my mouth actually watered at the thought of it, but I shook my head.

"No, I'd best be off," I insisted, shouldering my bag.

He shuffled over to me, extending his arms, and I thought he was going to hug me, but he merely placed one hand gently on each of my elbows, in an oddly affectionate gesture. Maybe it had finally got through to him how much I hated being touched. "I'll call you, alright?" he said softly.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. "Let's not be acting like this, please. You don't have to pretend. Like, this is the shittiest thing that men do, that whole, saying you'll call as some kind of pacifying gesture that just gets your hopes up for nothing. You won't call, and it's fine to just say so."

He looked genuinely perplexed. "I meant, about the photos?"

"Oh god, yes." I had nearly forgotten. "Of course. Look, I'll pick out the ones I think are the best, and email them to you."

Shaking his head, he looked horrified. "No. Don't email me anything, too easy to intercept. And if you call me, whatever you do, don't leave a message on my mobile."

"Why not?" I felt stupid as soon as I'd asked. Of course; his partner.

"I got a call from a Guardian journo a few months ago. My name and number were on the News of the World files. I've changed all my passwords, but... can't be too careful."

"Ah. I see." I could not even imagine the world he lived in. "Well, it should take me about a week to edit and do post-production. I'll text you when I have something."

"I look forward to it." He walked me out to the other room, and stood, for a moment, just watching me at the door, before I bent down and conceded a hug. For such a small slip of a man, he felt surprisingly substantial; I could feel the muscles of his broad shoulders even through his bathrobe. I went to kiss him lightly on his cheek, but he moved his face to meet my mouth with his own. At first I was too surprised to stop him, then relaxed into it, wondering for a moment what would happen if I just gave in, if I let myself be worn down, if I grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him back onto the bed... But then I regained control of myself and pushed him away.

"Stop it." I opened the door, slipped through it, and was gone before I could change my mind and stay.

 

I wrote the interview first, that afternoon, while it was still fresh in my mind. That was the easy part - he was intelligent and articulate, and his topics flowed so easily from one to the next that writing the narrative to go with it was easy. I barely needed to do transcription, whole paragraphs of our conversation seemed to flow from memory. The hardest part was, of course, whittling down the mass of interesting things he said to the core ideas, to fit the most of them into only 5000 words.

So it wasn't my imagination. Our conversation had been charged, hadn't it? The tension, the interplay, two intellectuals circling each other like a pair of lions sizing each other up. Who was that bold woman challenging him so easily? My voice on tape still surprised me, sounding so much richer, lower and throatier than it did echoing through my own head. I heard it now, the nervousness in his voice, that it sounded at times, oddly like he was trying to impress me. It was absurd - the handsome, multi-million selling rock star, trying to impress a semi-employed wine-swilling hack from Flintshire? I'd have laughed at the idea if I didn't still have the vague physical memory of his beard against my chin.

Only when I was happy with a rough draft of the article, and had read it through again the next morning to check for stupid spelling errors, did I go back to the memory card of my camera, to pick through the photos. Whenever I thought about that night, I felt all strange inside, like my stomach was doing flip-flops - not unpleasantly, really, just... odd. So to see the photos themselves, well, I kept putting it off. Still, my editor was on my back about it, and I knew that it might take time to get the approval, so I loaded up photoshop and started to go through them.

They were technically better than I remembered. In my mind, the terrible lighting and the alcohol had conspired to render them dark and muddy, but even after a bottle and a half of wine, my instincts had been good. They could do with a bit of contrast boosting, and perhaps colour retouching to get rid of the yellow room tone, but the images were definitely there. And christ, how had I forgotten those images?

I paged through them, one after another, tracing the lines of his face, his body, his high, almost reptilian cheekbones, the soft curve of his belly. His expression changed, from defiant, to that smoldering look I knew so well, to laughing, his eyes so animated, the curl of his lips changing his expression completely. The thought of those lips pressed against my own sprung unbidden into my head, that last snatched kiss in the morning. No, stop it, this was ridiculous. I had work to do.

The first thing I did was sort them, going through and taking the ones where his cock was visible and shunting them off into another, password-protected folder marked "not to be used." But christ, the expression on his face, the way his eyes bored into mine through the camera lens as he'd come. How had I not noticed that as I'd been taking the pictures? Because I hadn't been seeing him as man, or even as a body. I'd just been seeing him as lines and planes. I zoomed in on his face, reaching out and tracing the line of his eyebrows, his cheeks, his jawlines with my fingertip, in a way I could never have allowed myself to do with the real man. But reduced to pixels, he was safe, I could let my eyes linger on his thick, dark blond eyelashes, one eye almost closed, his lashes almost brushing his cheek, the other fixed open, staring, with that look of petulant lust.

Something twisted in the pit of my stomach. What the hell was wrong with me? I'd had this man in my bed, naked, his arms around me, begging me to sleep with him, but I hadn't been able to feel a thing except blind panic. Only when he was reduced to a piece of art, on the screen of my computer, was I able to look at him and think whether I actually wanted him.

Well, it was a bit late for that, I reminded myself, closing the picture abruptly and chucking the file into the locked folder.

I managed to get the choice down to about a dozen images, not counting a few duplicates where I couldn't choose between tiny variations in the pose. I boosted the contrast, adjusted the colour a tiny bit (though not too much as it made his hair turn from dark gold to ginger), cropped out a few extraneous hotel room features, then set to work retouching. Despite his protests, he really didn't need much. I removed a blemish here, toned down a shiny highlight there, dampened the drunken red in his face slightly. But mostly I just left him the way he was. The lines on his face gave him character, the tiny pot belly made him seem vulnerable and real, the unruly patch of hair on his tummy only served to pull the eye downwards, under the fabric of his robe. The robe was a nice touch, actually, with the contrast boosted to shining white, it gave him an oddly angelic look.

It took me two days to go through all of them, making them perfect, but when I was finally done, I reached for my phone. Even though I'd asked him not to, the fact that he hadn't rung and he hadn't texted made me feel oddly on guard. For fucks sake, girl, I told myself, getting approval from a subject wasn't a big deal, I'd done it many times. Yeah, but I'd never had to get approval from someone I'd snogged and then turned down... Well, there was that bloke I'd shagged for Next Step, but that was different. Everything about this situation could not be more different.

I picked up my phone, brought up his number, then chickened out and sent him a brief text telling him that I'd finished cropping and retouching the photos and just needed to get his approval.

Almost as soon as I'd sent it, my phone rang in my hand. I stared at his name on the display for a moment, then hit answer.

"Hey," he chirped, his voice sounding very near in my ear.

"You know, you could have just texted," I suggested, slightly intimidated.

"I'm in the car, I'd have had to pull over." As if in confirmation, there was the throb of engine noise in the background. "I was beginning to think you weren't going to call. That I'd made a complete arse of myself... Or, more likely, that the pictures were completely unusable, that my ugly mug broke your camera."

"No, they came out beautifully. You look... fantastic." My face flushed with uncontrolled pleasure as I thought of the photos. "I'm really pleased with the results." I paused as he laughed, sounding ever so slightly embarrassed, almost as embarrassed as I felt. "It's just a shame that I couldn't use the best ones, though." Another nervous laugh. Was that mine or his? Both of us, at once. "Look, how do I get these to you, for approval? Can I put them on a disc and post them?"

"Actually, that was what I was ringing about. I'm going to be in London again on Thursday. Can I maybe pop by your studio and look at them?" he suggested.

"I, erm, don't have a studio," I replied, slightly panicked. "I work out of my flat."

"OK, then, can I come round your flat and look at them?"

"I live in a very small flat, in a quite bad neighbourhood," I hedged.

"I'm not bothered."

"It's quite a change from what you're used to, I'm sure. It's hardly a luxury hotel."

He laughed. "Was that a luxury hotel, then? I'm not from London, it's all luxury to me. Honestly, I don't care. Tell me where you live and I'll come round when I'm done with my business at XL. Should be early evening, I reckon. I might even bring you takeaway curry if you're lucky."

Taking a deep breath, I looked around the disaster area of my flat. How much cleaning could I do in two days? No, fuck it. If he invited himself round my house, he had to deal with my chaos. "Well, alright, but don't tell me you weren't warned."

 

I hoovered. That was my principle concession to company. And I picked up most of the rubble on the floor, and raked the dirty laundry into a large plastic bag. But there was no getting around it. My flat was two cramped rooms in South London, crammed full of the detritus of over ten years of my life. The books, the magazines, the piles of CDs threatened to engulf it at any moment. I didn't have visitors very often. It was one of the few advantages of living so far away from the media hub of Dalston and Shoreditch. I met my friends in town; no one ever disturbed my solitude by 'just dropping by.' Still, I managed to clear a place for him to sit and uncovered the other half of the sofa so that both of us could go through the photos in comfort.

I bought two bottles of wine, then wondered if it was really such a good idea to let him get drunk again. No, there probably wouldn't even be time, he'd probably be in and out in a rush, approve the photos and drive back to Oxford before the traffic got really bad. Stop fussing and have another cup of tea, it will be fine. The minutes ticked by and still, there was no sign of him, irritating me slightly. As the next hour struck, my phone pinged with a text message.

"sorry - stuck in terrible traffic coming through the elephant."

"OK, if it's bad, avoid Brixton this time of night, it'll be hell with busses. Go round by Stockwell and across the South Circular through Clapham Park."

I put the phone down, and opened the first bottle of wine just to sooth my own jangling nerves. When my doorbell finally rang, nearly an hour later, I jumped. I was dressed simply, perhaps even severely - black leggings, a long, slightly witchy skirt, an ancient shapeless black jumper that might once have been from the children's section of M&S, my long hair swept into an untidy bun - but it was too late to change.

"Be there in a sec," I told him through the intercom, then put on a pair of slippers to walk to the gate. Classy. And when I pulled back the tall wooden gate, there he was, looking very incongruous in Streatham, in his big boots, his tweed jacket and a heavy country-looking woolen scarf. And yet his eyes lit up when he saw me, and his face twisted into a crooked little smile. How strange, to see that face I'd been working on, on the laptop, all week, in the flesh in front of me. I had forgotten how tiny he was, how fragile he looked in his slightly too-large clothes, his birdlike face perched on his wide shoulders. "Come in."

"Is that a glass of wine?" he asked, pointing to the glass I'd forgotten I was still clutching in my hand. "Christ, I could do with one, after that traffic."

I walked through into the kitchen to pour him one, expecting him to be on my heels, but when I turned around to hand it to him, he was gone. "Thom?" My flat was two rooms and a stuck-on bathroom, it was impossible to get lost.

"Wow," came through a slightly awe-struck voice from the hall. He was standing staring at one of my murals. "Did you do this?"

"Yeah." I shrugged. I'd lived in the flat for so long I'd forgotten the effect it had on people. Over the past ten years, I'd slowly painted every available surface in bright, jewel-toned colours, swirling psychedelic paisley and peacock feathers and random abstract patterns. He was staring at a wall of purple and gold paisley glaring at each other with Turkish eyes.

He took the wine, but he'd lost interest in it, walking through the other door as if in a daze, his eyes captured by the mass of turquoise and purple ripples on the opposite wall. No, don't walk into there, I thought to myself, but it was too late. He was standing, staring, awe-struck, without noticing that he'd walked straight through into the bedroom. "You painted that."

I took it for granted, the mural on the wall above my bed - my grandmother's house, the house I'd grown up in, the lake, the trees, mountains and clouds behind, but all rendered in an eye-bending groovy 60s abstract style that was half art nouveau and half acid trip. The bedroom itself, I barely noticed - cast iron bed, carved Indian screens, an old guitar amp used as a bedside table, supporting a Tiffany lamp and blue glass bottles that contained peacock feathers and beads. One wall was my CD collection, the other was a rack of my clothes, all jumbled together with costumes and scarves and hats.

"This is like something out of a 60s movie - like... Performance, or Psych Out or The Trip. Fuck, we should have done the photo shoot in here. It looks like a film set."

"I've already done a couple of photo shoots here. It's quite distinctive, so I don't want to overuse it."

"Oh." He looked around, suddenly flustered, as if noticing for the first time that he was standing, uninvited, in the middle of a woman's bedroom. The way he blushed, his ears flushing first, before the red spread to his cheeks, it was actually adorable. How had I not noticed before? Although I'd spent hours photographing him, it was like I was noticing him for the first time, all the little things that I had spent hours working with on the computer, the way the hairs of his beard started from a whorl on the side of his neck, and spread counter-clockwise up one cheek and clockwise down his adams apple. "I'm sorry," he interrupted. "I've been in the car for hours. Where's your loo?" He turned to look at me, and caught me staring. Our eyes locked, just for a moment, but long enough for some tiny flicker of recognition to pass between us, and the corners of his lips curled up, just ever so slightly, in a smile.

"Oh. Right." I snapped out of my daze, embarrassed to have been caught staring. "This way, through the kitchen and out that door."

"Oh my god, it's like... a Moorish harem in here," he sputtered as I led him through the sitting room, with its purple and fuchsia walls, draped in pink and gold saris, with Tibetan flags and dangling bejeweled earrings dangling from strings of beads. I spent so much time in my flat that I barely noticed it any more, the layers of stuff just accumulating like sedimentary rock. I seldom placed anything deliberately, I just brought home little prizes from second hand shops and let them get caught where they fit.

"Through there," I directed, before he could get lost in the bead curtain.

"My god, there's even murals in here. It's like a forest."

"Don't lock the door," I warned. "It sticks, and I don't want you to get trapped in there." Without even waiting to be asked, I went over to the kitchenette along one wall, and put the kettle on to make him a cup of tea.

When he finally emerged, his eyes were huge, sparkling with wonder. "I was trying to imagine where, and how you lived, as I was driving over. I had no idea. It's like an enchanted forest in here. I'm almost afraid to drink your tea - thanks - in case you're like the fairies, and if I eat your food, you get to keep me."

"Well, I'd love to, but there simply isn't the space," I teased, directing him to his cleared-off portion of the sofa.

The corners of his mouth creased downwards as he seemed to notice the chaos around him, and I suddenly saw the flat through his eyes - the piles of books pushed out of the way on the arm of the sofa, the thick layer of dust blanketing the lampshade though I'd made a half-hearted attempt at trying to dust the side table. But then his gaze caught sight of a procession of shapes like the tiny animals from the marginalia of a Celtic illuminated manuscript climbing up the edge of one of my bookcases, and he smiled again.

"I kinda want you to come round my house and paint murals now. I tried to paint a couple of little creatures in my kids' rooms, but my girlfriend said they were monsters, and they would give the kids nightmares."

Kids. Girlfriend. I tried to remind myself of these facts, even as he seemed to settle naturally into the corner of my Chesterfield, surrounded by the dusty bindings of books and a pile of brightly coloured Indian cushions. "But kids love monsters. My dad painted Maurice Sendak's Wild Things on my walls when I was a child. Never did me any harm."

"Well, that's debatable." His eyes flashed with amusement.

A few days earlier, I'd have snapped, defensively, at the teasing, but it felt oddly comfortable, even reassuring, now. "I was traumatised by this weird painting of this Paul Klee child thing that looked like a monster, that my mum hung in my bedroom. That's what I was warped by. Not my dad's scary monster paintings, just modern art."

"Ha, some child psychology. Were your Mum and Dad playing good cop, bad cop?"

"I'm not sure which was which in my case. When I was in the hospital, my mum brought me fashion magazines and Jane Eyre. My dad brought me a scifi magazine full of William Gibson and Philip K Dick. Oh, and and Alice in Wonderland. I know which seemed more real to me."

"The latter, I imagine," he chuckled, blowing on his tea to cool it before sipping at it. When he had taken a gulp, he turned back to me. "What were you in hospital for, if you don't mind my asking?"

I flinched. What on earth had made me bring that up? It wasn't something I was comfortable discussing with most people, but he had a way of way of worming out my secrets without even trying. "It was a very long time ago. I don't really like to talk about it."

He turned the left side of his face towards me, and pointed to his mangled eyelid. "Come on. I spent half my childhood in one arm of the NHS or the other. You can tell me. I don't scare easily."

I nervously sucked my wine then scratched subconsciously at my nose as if in sympathy with his scars. "It was a mental hospital, alright? That's why Alice went down so well. I was through the looking glass."

His face didn't change at all. Not the shadow of fear, nor, even worse, the flicker of pity, just a sort of vague recognition. "Depression?"

"Well, manic depression. Or Bipolar or whatever the trendy name is for it now."

He nodded slowly. "It makes sense. I know a lot of artists and musicians who suffer from it. I've... walked with the black dog many times myself. I do get it."

"Thanks." I turned away to refill my glass because he became suddenly too painful to look at him. I was used to pity and used to fear, but acceptance was too rare a thing for me.

"Are you on medication?" he asked suddenly. I turned back to him, somewhat shocked by how personal a question it was. "I mean, I was reading, on the internet, about asexuality and its causes. And about how SSRIs and some other medications can cause a loss of libido. I thought maybe..." His voice trailed off as he saw the outraged expression on my face.

"No," I snapped with a finality I hoped ended the line of questioning.

"Alright, fair enough. I didn't like Prozac myself, it made my head hum like a fucking power generator. Even worse than the depression, I hated the way that everyone around me, the way they treated my depression, like it was something wrong with me, some failure of cheerfulness, and not some alien disease, some cancerous growth that had imposed itself on my mind. And like I said... you know, most of my problems are not actually with me or in my head, but with the fucked up system, the fucked up environment, the fucked up way I was raised. So I completely respect it, your decision."

I still glared at him. "Why were you reading about asexuality, anyway?"

"I'd never encountered it before. I was curious. I just wanted to know more about it." He lowered his head with a slightly guilty expression. "I wasn't... you know, stalking you or anything."

I didn't believe him for a second, and although I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or vaguely creeped out, I chose to ignore it. "Well, if you'd done the research, you'd know it's just... you know, a thing. It doesn't have to be related to depression or to medication. It just is. And my libido is just fine, thank you, though I don't see what business of yours that is? I mean, you wanna talk about a fucked up system and a fucked up way of being raised, I personally think that the emphasis that our society places on sex and romance and pairing off and the whole fucking heteronormativity thing, it's completely fucked up and does people's heads in. So rejecting that..."

"No, I agree," he hedged, as if trying to placate me. "Our society is over-mediated and over-sexualised in some deeply fucked-up ways, but... I'm still not sure where working for a porno magazine fits into that? Doesn't that encourage heteronormative sex and romance?"

"Yeah, and you're an anti-corporate campaigner who spent how many years making billions of pounds for EMI?" I tossed back, still feeling very prickly. "We've been through this. The only way to change things is from the inside."

"Touché." I'd been expecting another fight, another argument like the ones we'd burned through during our interview, but instead he smiled, placing his empty teacup on the coffee table. "I needed that. But what did you do with my wine?"

"I didn't do anything with it. Did you leave it somewhere? Oh yes, it's still in my bedroom." I went to retrieve it, taking a minute to catch my breath, and try to get back into a professional state of mind.

"Can you get a CD while you're in there, put some music on?" he called through.

"There's iTunes on the laptop on the table in front of you. Put something on yourself," I told him as I threaded my way back through into the living room, placing the wineglass beside him on the table.

"You trust me?"

"Well, if it's on my laptop, then it's gonna be good."

He flicked through my music library idly. "Aw, you've only got one of my band's albums on here. I'm disappointed."

Although I wanted to play it cool, pretend I didn't care, the journalist in me resented the implication that I hadn't done my research. "Got most of them on CD somewhere. Promos. Like I said, one of the small perks of being a journalist."

He smirked proudly, but changed the subject, more surprised than diplomatic, distracted by the contents of my iTunes. "How much fucking Hawkwind do you have? I had no idea they had so many albums." He cackled like a sick duck as he went through my music. "Scott Walker. Good taste, mate, but probably not appropriate. Maybe something more upbeat, more Warp Records. Oh! You're missing the best Boards of Canada album, though."

"I'm not - In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country is on there," I snorted. Being back on the safe topic of music seemed somehow easier.

"Oh, I'll just put on Aphex Twin, then. Or Ellen Allien? Nah, Aphex will do." He minimised iTunes, then smiled at my desktop. "Richard James is your wallpaper? Oh, that's so cute. I love seeing how you're really just a fangirl at heart. Well, you are for other people, at least." There was the edge of disappointment to his voice.

"Would you even be here if I was your fangirl? You only like me because I put up a fight. I bet this is an ego thing for you," I retorted. Wow, the wine had gone to my head quickly if I'd just said that out loud.

"It's not that, you know." He regarded me evenly from his mismatched eyes.

I felt like snapping back 'well, what is it, then?' but I managed to hold my tongue, turning the laptop back towards me and bringing up the slideshow of images that I'd chosen to submit to Incandescent.

"I thought maybe you'd understand, as an artist, as a writer, how inspiring, how... creatively stimulating it is, to have a crush on someone," he stuttered by way of explanation, but I tried to bury my nose in my computer, to avoid what he was saying. "It's not even the sexual thing, or the conquest thing. It's just, when you meet someone, and you're completely intrigued by them, and maybe, yeah, that slightly obsessive rush of wanting to know about them, wanting to figure out their puzzle. It's a rush, it's a high." His eyes sparkled as he spoke. "And it's exactly the same kind of high, as when you're working on a song, or a drawing, and it's going really well, and you're just inspired. That dizzy high that you can get from making something. It's like falling in love, only better. Though... if you don't ever fall in love... oh god, how can I explain it to you?"

I turned towards him very slowly, hoping that the mingled fear and excitement didn't show in my eyes. "I may not know what love feels like, but I know that feeling, that you're describing. I know that intimately. It is a kind of high, but it's also like mania."

"I suppose in a way, it is. But in a way, isn't all writing, and all imagination, really, a bit like mental illness? Though probably that applies more to writing like Alice Through The Looking Glass than Jane Austen." He paused, cocking his head to one side like a bird, observing me as if trying to memorise me. "I get that feeling when I think about you. Like I'm flying, and I see whole new vistas, whole new landscapes opening up to be explored. It is the most creative rush ever."

I was having trouble processing this. I hated this feeling. That feeling when you thought you were an equal, you thought you were a full creative partner, but suddenly found yourself demoted from collaborator down to some ethereal 'inspiration.' "I'm not going to be your fucking muse, if that's what you're asking," I snorted, bringing up the first of the photos I wanted him to approve.

He looked at the photo carefully, almost with disbelief, as if refusing to accept that the beautiful man in the picture was really him, then looked back at me. "But it looks like I could be yours." Suddenly an evil grin flickered across his face. "Mind you, I'd have to break half my fingers to be as shit a guitarist as Mat Bellamy, but..."

I spluttered into laughter, finally breaking the tense mood. "That must gall you so much."

"It embarrasses me, more than anything else, thinking I'm responsible for that. Self indulgent fucking tripe." He leaned forward to look at the picture again. "I can't believe that's me. How much did you airbrush that?"

"Not much at all. I got rid of the little red mark on your stomach, from your belt, but nothing else."

Bending forward, he peered at the screen, the slightly scruffy middle aged man regarding the white marble adonis with an expression of distrust, but sneaking admiration. "I can't get over how you've made me look. That's how I feel when I'm onstage sometimes, and it's going really right. Adored. Powerful. Even sexy."

I tried not to blush at the compliment to my work. "Well, it doesn't hurt that I had such a good model. You're an incredibly expressive actor."

He chuckled softly. "I'm a terrible actor, actually."

"Come off it. Look at that expression on your face, I love that, that you manage to be defiant and yet vulnerable, and also ever so slightly... there's a yearning, hungry quality that speaks of barely controlled desire... you have such an expressive face, you are such a good actor." I waved my hands across the screen like an art teacher, pointing out the subtle lines in the set of his jaw, the curl of his lips that somehow managed to convey all these emotions at once.

Thom's voice suddenly grew very soft, and very low. "You don't really know me. I can't... act... at all."

My face burning, I moved swiftly on to the next frame, my mind recoiling not from what he had just said, but from what he had just implied. "I should show them to you in order, really. Like, how they would be in the magazine spread, the narrative thrust... I mean, narrative arc of the pictorial."

Thom snickered slightly as I fumbled with the computer, bringing up the first photo, of him draped across the sofa in his dressing gown. "Blimey, if they all look like that, this is going to be quick. That's a yes. Show me the next..." I paged down through the slideshow. "Yes, that's fine. And that one's good. Ooh, that one is nice. I really like the way you've made my hair look so shaggy and full. Can you crop out just my head and send that to our PR to use as a press shot? Much better than anything Getty Images has of me. That one's alright. That one... no, no way in hell."

"Why not?" I protested.

He pointed his finger along a blemish I barely saw. "You can see my fucking back hair. Makes me feel like fucking shit, looking at that. Reminds me of being papped on the beach by that fucking paparazzi in Brazil. You're not using it." He paused, as his annoyance turned to vulnerability. "Please."

"OK... if you say so," I sighed, removing it from the slideshow and chucking it into the Do Not Use folder.

"That one's alright. That one's OK. And... fucking hell, christ."

"Please don't tell me I can't use that one. That one is my fucking favourite. You just look so defiant and beautiful."

"Oh, god." He sighed deeply. "I hate the way my eye looks in it. And my hair looks shit, it's gone flat in the back. But alright. Next one? Oh, fuck no. No way."

"What's wrong with that one? You look properly post-coital there, it's the perfect ending to the set." I wasn't even thinking about sex as I said it, I was just trying to maintain the narrative of the photo-essay.

He extended a finger and pointed to his chest, pointing out flecks of semen caught in his hair. "That, and that, and that."

I grinned. "That's why I like it."

He turned towards me with a filthy grin. "You are proper dirty, you are." For a moment, we just looked at one another, caught in a battle of wills. "Can you airbrush that out? You can use it if you get rid of that spunk."

"I'll see what I can do, but it might be tricky, because that's your nipple in the way." I brushed my hand across the screen, and he shivered slightly as if I'd touched him in the flesh. Closing the slideshow, I opened the original file in photoshop and brought up the clone tool, working gently around the edge of the droplet to remove it, replicating his skin, trying to get his pores evenly spaced, keeping the hairs intact. He watched me carefully as I worked, my fingers on a touchpad, flicking and clicking carefully. When I zoomed back out, the drop of semen was gone, his chest perfect.

"You're so good at that. It's like watching a professional at work." The expression on his face was more than slightly gooey.

"I am a professional," I shrugged, moving over to the next drop and stroking it carefully away with my fingertips on the trackpad.

"There's just something about watching a woman being really technologically competent, up to her knuckles in a MacBook... phew. Wow." He picked up his wineglass and took another swig. "Are you going to want to... take more photos?" he suggested gently, arching his eyebrows.

"I've got more than enough for the magazine," I told him, not quite sure what he was offering. It confused me when he seemed to be flirting with me. Alright, I also felt flattered, and slightly curious, and more than a little afraid. But mostly just confused. Like he had torn up all the carefully controlled and arranged emotions inside my head and scattered them like so much confetti.

"I dunno... I saw the bed. And the costumes. And I just thought... you might want to take some more? For kicks? For art? For you?"

I saved a copy of the file, then moved to the third splotch of semen, right across his nipple. No, there was no cloning that. I went to my browse window and flicked through the RAW files, trying to find another pose where he was lying in the same position, with his nipple at the same angle. Yes, that one would do. I opened the file, chopped out a hunk of his breast, then imported it into the one I was trying to fix. Some colour correction, some airbrushed erasing around the edge, a bit of nudging and the new, dry nipple dropped into place.

"You just sampled my nipple. That is really unnerving."

I looked up, not noticing how close he had moved towards me, his face only inches away. The smell of him, the faint musky tang of man, the scent of his hair product, the earthy woolen smell of his tweed jacket. A part of me wanted to reach out and touch his beard, freshly trimmed, to see if it was as soft as when it had been long. "What sort of photos do you have in mind?"

"No, it's whatever sort of photos you have in mind. I'm ready for pretty much anything this time." His voice was low, but clear.

"Why are you doing this? What's in it for you?"

"I've found... I really... like collaborating. It's good for me, as an artist and as a person. To stretch myself. Let other artists push me out of my comfort zone. This is like a completely new kind of collaboration." His eyes were dipping lower, staring down at my lips. I licked them reflexively, wondering if I had food on them, then started to chew nervously on my lower lip. He shifted in his seat as if trying to make himself comfortable, then leaned back again. "Are there any other photos you want me to approve?"

"No, that was the last of them." I went to move the computer and my hair fell forward into my face, obscuring my view. Almost immediately, he reached out to tuck the unruly strand behind my ear, but I flinched away from him. What right did he have, to invite himself into my house, and sit on my sofa and rearrange all of my feelings like he was mucking up the alphabetisation of my CD collection. He knew I hated being touched, why did he keep doing it? He just confused me, and I wished he'd stop. And yet, still, I could not force myself to move from beside him.

"Sorry," he mumbled, and I tried to steer the conversation back onto the professional, onto art and photography, and away from the deep blue of his eyes.

"Do you have any ideas? What do you want to do?"

He swallowed nervously and leaned forward, reaching out to rescue his glass of wine from the table, but in the process, the cuff of his blazer brushed against the lampshade, leaving a long smear of pale grey dust. For a moment, he looked at it, his eyebrows half quizzical, half horrified, and I broke into a kind of embarrassed laugh.

"Do you expect me to apologise for being such a slattern? Because honestly, I can't be bothered."

"I somehow didn't expect you to apologise for anything, ever," he deadpanned, brushing off the dirt distastefully before sipping his wine.

"You know what they say about artists. One must be disorderly in one's regular life, so that one can be orderly in one's creative work."

A very strange expression flickered across his face for a moment before settling into gently perplexed amusement, his chest heaving slightly with what I took to be silent laughter. "That's not how the saying goes, Fi. It's Flaubert. 'Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.'"

"I don't want to be violent and original in my work. I want it to be carefully ordered... perfection." I withdrew my limbs, carefully crossing my legs, as if this time, it was him on the attack, and me trying to roll myself into a ball. "The closest thing that I will ever have to perfection, in this world."

Stretching out across my sofa like a creeping weed, he stared up at the bunting of cobwebs stretching between ceiling and wall, echoing the bunting of Tibetan prayer flags below. "You are so like, and yet so unlike, anyone I have ever known." He paused to sip at his wine. "My girlfriend had that written across the front of her sketchbook in bright red marker the first time we met. We argued about it for a whole semester. She won, in the end, of course."

I snorted with laughter. "I can't imagine anyone winning an argument with you." Especially not someone he would end up fucking. It all seemed like an elaborate game he always had to win. The mention of his girlfriend both disarmed me, reminding me that this was not a seduction, and yet unnerved me.

"I've decided." He lay back into the depths of the sofa, his eyes slitted. "I think I want... I want you to draw me. Turn me into one of your saints and angels, turn me into one of your beautiful boys."

I glared at him. "You have been stalking me."

"I looked through your Flickr, alright? You had it all just out there. It wasn't very difficult to find at all." He pulled away from me, looking very sheepish.

"How did you find it? I do the art under a different pseudonym from my writing."

"It was linked. From your Twitter."

"You read my Twitter." My voice went cold, accusatory.

"I considered following you, but I didn't know how you'd react." He rubbed his face, playing nervously with the hairs of his beard. "I really actually quite admired it, how open and honest you were about all that stuff out there. I read your blog and..."

"You read my blog," I nearly shrieked, outraged.

"It's alright, you can read mine..."

"I don't want to read yours. Is there anything of mine you haven't rifled through?" I felt, actually, genuinely violated, more exposed than if he had ripped my clothes off and left me standing in front of him naked.

"I wanted to understand you." He withdrew slightly, guilt and hurt showing in his eyes. "You're such a mystery to me. Because half of you is so familiar that you say things, and with one sentence you have stripped bare something I have kept hidden for decades. But the other half of you is just... woosh. It's like falling off a cliff. A sheer drop. Like a black hole I just don't understand. And I want to know what's in there."

"You presume, so much," I sputtered.

"But you put it out there. Why put it out there, so exposed and raw, if you don't want people to read it?"

"Because it's not for you! It's for my closest friends, and for anonymous people, who I've never met, but are going through the same things."

"So you're allowed to use my lyrics against me, but I'm not allowed to use your art to explore you?"

"Because I am fucking suspicious of why you are exploring me. I don't like being stalked, and probed, by some married man who is constantly trying to seduce me."

He snorted a single burst of laughter. "Now who's projecting."

"Fuck you," I retorted, climbing off the couch and walking over to pour myself another glass of wine. What was I doing, even putting up with this? This was my flat, I would be well within my rights to ask him to leave.

"And I'm not married, you know. My partner and I practice managed non-monogamy."

"Oh, so you're a married man looking for a little tail on the side." There it was, the kicker I had always expected. He didn't see me as an artist, a fellow creative. He saw me as a hole to be filled. On so many levels, and none of them very nice.

"That's not what I said. We've been together for 20-odd years. Whatever we are, it is forever. But I am... away for six months, a year at a time. We recognise realities and practicalities. We draw boundaries and we don't ask questions."

"You're not on tour," I informed him, leaning back against the kitchen counter, glad that I had the bulk of the coffee table between me and him. Why didn't I just throw him out? Was I almost as intrigued and excited by this conversation as I was repulsed and confused? "And what does your partner think about all this?"

"My partner is... I was going to say she's a saint, but she's not, and she'd hate to be called one. I don't know why she puts up with me, but she does. We fit together, as a unit, and we manage to make it work. On an instinctive level, she seems to understand me, and my needs."

"What, that you need to screw around?" I snorted.

He shook his head. "I keep telling you, it isn't about screwing around. I have... I go through... obsessions. I don't know if it's borderline OCD, or if it's that madness you talk about. I get completely... stuck. On ideas. On things, on places, on concepts... and on people. It is the fuel I burn that feeds my creativity. She's a professional artist herself, or she used to be, before we had children. She understands that impulse, she understands that that is the thing that makes me tick. Maybe she's just being pragmatic, she doesn't want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, when it comes to my music. But she gives me the freedom that I need, and I give her the same thing. It's nothing sordid, like you seem to want to paint it as swinging or skirt-chasing or something. That is just not me. But this need to follow my... I hate to say the word crush because it makes me sound like a schoolboy, but... there you go. I need the freedom to follow my obsessions."

"And why the fuck are you telling me this, anyway? You've read my blog. Did you not get the memo? I'm asexual, I'm not interested."

"I read your blog. I read all about your confusion about 'the hedgehog' and how he pushed you, but he made you feel things you didn't want to feel."

"And you're still pushing me."

"Let me finish, dammit woman! I read your blog. I googled. And I followed the links that you posted, to definitions and resources and wikis. I know there's a word for this thing - this love-blindness, this love-atheism of yours. Aromantic. I read what it meant. I think it's a good word, though I don't really understand it on an instinctual level. I fall in love, all the fucking time, though I wish I didn't, it is too much of a creative stimulus. But there's this other thing you talked about. And about how you live in your head so much, how you create your own worlds that seem so much more real to you than this one, that the world inside your head becomes so vivid that it's hard to recognise other people as really real, let alone interact with our ugly misshapen meat bodies. That your image of them as symbol, archetype or metaphor for something in your own psyche, is almost more important than the real thing. And I intimately know, and understand what that feels like. I am the same way." His defiant half-stare seemed to bore right through me.

"So it's not even about me, it's just about your image of me and what you think I should be like. That's false, Thom, that's not me. That's what you were talking about the media doing to you. That's some projection of me. Videotape." I threw his own word back at him like a knife. "You're just guessing."

"But I'm guessing right, aren't I? I can see it in your eyes."

"A lucky guess," I finally conceded. "It doesn't mean anything."

"You are the same as me. I know it. I feel it in here." He thumped his chest lightly. "I want you to know, that I understand that."

I sighed deeply, unable to think of anything except how he rifled through the back pages of my subconscious, gone through my trash and taken pictures of my metaphorical children at the school gate. "I should ask you to leave."

A desperate, love-sick expression came over his face as he realised he had dealt his cards, and I had refused to call his bluff. "Do you really want me to go?"


	6. Supercollider

Even as I stared at him, the desperation in his eyes, the fear drawing in the corners of his mouth, one muscle twitching nervously in his cheek, I felt his face dissolving into lines and planes, light and shadow, and I suddenly saw the image I wanted to draw of him, the expression on his face, the tendrils of his hair, the darting of his small, quick, paw-like hands. My pull to create, to write things down, to rearrange the world into drawings and photos, to make him into a song or sketch, it was stronger than my fear, or even my sense of reason and it overcame the sense of flashing warning signs telling me to run away. He was beautiful and I wanted to draw him. "No, Hedgehog," I finally confessed.

"OK, Hornbeam," he sighed with palpable relief.

"But what do you want from me?"

"Do you have to know everything, all the time? Can you not just relax and let it happen?"

I giggled slightly, feeling the wine going to my head. "Do you really have to ask that?"

"I suppose not." He smiled wryly as I picked my sketchbook and a pencil out of a pile of possessions on my kitchen table, then sat down at the other end of the Chesterfield, facing him, with my legs up and my knees bent to support the tablet. Pulling off his boots, he turned to face me, extending his stubby legs tentatively until his toes almost touched my own. I closed one eye and squinted, trying to reduce him to two dimensions, holding up the end of my pencil to measure the length of his face to its breadth before sketching out a rough oval and starting to shade it in.

As I drew, he talked. "I have a friend, she's a musician, a very good one. I've worked with her before. And she writes material with lots of different people, she's collaborating all the time - but she's so creative, and so vibrant, and so just overflowing with life and excitement that everyone ends up falling a little bit in love with her. And I suspect she really plays on that, and kind of fans it because, through making you fall a little bit in love with her, she has this way of really pulling out your best work. She makes everything magic that way."

"Did you sleep with her?"

"No," he confessed slightly mournfully. "I desperately wanted to, at the time. But she had a partner she truly, deeply loved. And he was about six foot four, with arms like tree trunks; he could have kicked the living crap out of me."

"But you think I'm going to put out." I dug on the table to find my kneaded eraser and fix the slight wobble in the line of his jaw.

"You are obsessed," he laughed, moving his feet closer to mine, until our toes were touching. I withdrew my legs, but he followed, placing the balls of his feet against mine in an oddly tender gesture.

"Are you trying to start a leg-wrestling competition, because I warn you, I will beat your arse." I smiled, to show I was being friendly, but kept my eyebrows knitted to show I was not kidding around.

"I have no doubt of that. But no, you're warm and my feet are cold."

"You're always cold."

"I am always cold." He paused, smiling a mischievous grin that I had to adjust the line of my drawing's lips to match. 'It's because I'm so small. I have a lower surface to body volume ratio, so I lose heat more quickly." He pushed against my feet gently, shaking my sketchbook.

"Don't. Not unless you want a deformed head."

"My head's already deformed, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Shut it." I pushed back against his feet, driving his legs up into his lap.

"Blimey, you are strong." A few more lines, and I had caught his gesture perfectly, only adding a few ornate curling lines to suggest the mass of his hair, long and flat against his head today, rather than standing up in peaks and waves. A twist to represent the scarf he had omitted to take off indoors, and the suggestion of shoulders, and I was done. I held it at arms length, squinting to try and see what, if anything, I needed to add to it, but he reached for it. "Can I see?"

His first reaction was to laugh. "You always make me look like a schoolboy who's been caught pilfering quails' eggs. Is that really how you see me?"

"You said you wanted me to make you into a beautiful boy."

"I think you've made me too beautiful." Still, he smiled proudly, reaching out his hand towards me.

"What?"

"Give me the pencil, it's my turn to draw you."

"No way, that wasn't part of the deal."

"Come on, hand it over." He pushed back against my legs abruptly, and as my attention was distracted, he snatched the pencil from my hand.

"No, stop it," I insisted, covering my face with my hands.

"Fair's fair. I sometimes don't think you know what you look like. At least, not to me. Please put down your hands, cause I can see you..."

"Dun durr-durr dun-durr, dun durr-durr dun-durr," I supplied, echoing the guitar riff of the song.

"I'll be your mirror, reflect what you are, in case you don't know," he sung softly, his voice achingly raw before shooting up into his schoolboy falsetto. "I'll... be the wind, the rain and the sunset, the light in your door, to show that you're home." He looked up at me, with a penetrating, searching gaze, before lowering his eyes to the paper again, sketching furiously as he carried on singing, gently. "When you think the night has seen your mind, that inside you're twisted and unkind. Let me stand to show that you are blind." Something inside of me melted, those words, that song I'd known for so long, sung in his voice, so familiar and yet so unexpected. "I find it hard to believe you don't know, the beauty you are. But if you don't, let me be your eyes, a hand to your darkness, so you won't be afraid..."

"Please stop," I interrupted.

"Why? I love that song." He seemed ever so slightly affronted. The most critically acclaimed singer in England; he probably didn't get told to shut up very often.

"Because I'm going to cry."

He looked up at me, his face all apologies. "I'm sorry. I'll sing Venus In Furs now - will that make you laugh instead? Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather. Whiplash girlchild, in the dark..." He pushed gently back at my feet, then alternated legs like he was pedaling a bicycle. I played along, feeling oddly exposed without a camera or a sketchbook or a tape recorder. The way that he looked at me, glancing up occasionally as if mentally tracing my eyes, my nose, my lips, it made me feel distinctly odd. Not bad odd, but just, odd. I was used to being narrator, not the story.

"Are you done yet?"

"Nearly." He scribbled more furiously at the page, then glanced up at me again. "Your hair is fun to draw. It's like big black macaroni noodles."

"Uh, thanks... I think."

"I'm just signing it..." I rolled my eyes at the assumption I wanted the drawing in the first place. "Here you go." Grinning, he handed the drawing back, then put the pencil down on the table and picked up his wine again.

I stared at the paper, shocked and slightly surprised, trying to make head or tail of the mass of lines in my sketchbook. "You've drawn me as a tree. Am I Daphne? Does that make you Apollo?"

"Maybe. I could easily see you turning yourself into a tree to avoid making love with me."

But it was definitely my face staring out from the centre of a thicket of leaves and birdsnests and spaghetti-like branches, my round Welsh cheeks and my smashed-up nose. Did I look that scared to him, my eyes huge things under narrowed brows, my lips pursed with anticipation or fear?

"You're allowed to laugh. It's supposed to be funny," he informed me, with a twinkling but slightly defensive smile.

"What kind of tree am I supposed to be? I've got deciduous leaves, but there's some kind of pine-cone on the lower branches?"

"Come on. That's a hedgehog. Clearly. Curled up in your arms."

"Sentimental fool." I kicked back at him somewhat more forcefully than I intended.

"Ooh, you want to wrestle, do you? Come on, then. I cycle. Let's have it." He struggled, but I had the upper hand, having already pushed him into a curled up position where he couldn't unstraighten his legs to get decent traction. A brief tussle, and he slipped sideways, my legs shooting into his lap, nearly kicking him in the chest. "OK, you win," he conceded, picking up my feet and rearranging himself more comfortably before resting them in his lap. His fingers, restless, played across my toes before settling into rubbing small circles on the balls of my feet. I caught my breath, almost paralysed by the bolt of lust that shot up my spine. What the hell was that? It had not come from my brain or my emotions, it was a purely animal reflex of gut instinct. "What? Am I hurting you?" he asked, concerned.

"No..." I whimpered.

"I'm sorry, do you want me to stop?"

"Nooooo..." That felt magical, marvelous, whatever he was doing with his fingertips, as I slowly sunk back into the cushion, my mouth half open, my head lolling.

"You do like that, don't you," he observed, slowly pulling off one sock and carefully wiping my toes with it. The feel of his fingers against the sensitive skin of the arch of my foot was almost electric. And then, without warning, he picked my foot up in his hands, raised it to his lips and started to gently suck on my toes. All the synapses in my brain seemed to light up like an overloaded switchboard. This was definitely arousal, parts of my body that hadn't been activated in years, suddenly making their presence known. His hands were reaching higher, skirting up the inside of my leg, and that suddenly snapped me back into the present. I reached out and blocked him, placing my hand over his as it reached my knee, and tried to push it back. But then he removed my toes from his mouth and looked at me plaintively, rubbing his bearded chin back and forth across my instep, touching me softly with his lips. I raised my hand and let him continue. "What are you afraid of?"

"If you start this, I'm not going to be able to stop."

"Who says we have to stop?"

I closed my eyes, feeling pleasure trickling up my legs from the tiny hairs rubbing against my feet. "This is just a one-time thing, alright? An experiment. Just to see what if."

"Let's not put boundaries on it, OK?"

"No, I am putting a boundary on it, that's what I'm saying, that's the condition. One night only. I don't want you to get any ideas."

He kissed my ankle, kissed my Achilles heel, kissed my calf and slowly moved up. "Alright. If that's what you want."

Abruptly, I pulled my leg away from him and stood up, brushing myself off and picking up my glass of wine to take a huge fortifying gulp. He looked up at me, his eyes confused and slightly disappointed, but made no move to follow me as I strode from the room. When he didn't respond, I turned to look at him. "Well, are you coming or not?"

I lay down on the bed, my heart pounding in my throat, feeling like a sacrificial lamb. Finally, he appeared in the door to my room, pulling off his jacket and unwrapping the scarf from around his neck. He bent down as if to take his trousers off, but I stopped him. "Not yet."

He sat down on the edge of the bed, looking down at me with mingled fear and wonder in his eyes, then reached out and stroked my hair gently. "Don't look so terrified. I'm not going to bite you."

"I'm not afraid of you, I'm afraid of me."

"I'm not scared of you. You're not half as terrifying as you think you are." Slowly, carefully, he lowered himself down so that his face was even with mine. The colour of his eyes was astonishingly dark blue, close up, his beard flecked with red and gold and a few streaks of white. Reaching out, I touched his lips first, with my fingertips, feeling the pressure as he gently kissed then, then I wrapped my hands around the back of his neck, pulling him towards me roughly. His eyes lit up with excitement as I kissed him, bringing my mouth down on his almost violently, like a ravenous man falling on food. I pushed my tongue into his mouth, twining my fingers in his hair to pull his head back, then sucked his tongue into my mouth, pushing myself up against him, wrapping my legs around him. He was kissing me back now, his arms around me, one hand going for my breasts. I felt too urgent for all that now, I wanted to get it out of the way, clawing at him, grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him harshly onto his back. I didn't really know what came over me, it was like I was another person, a person filled with rage and anger, but also completely overwhelmed by lust, wanting to just eat him up like he was piece of red meat thrown into an animal's cage.

For a moment, he stared up at me, in shock, then his face slowly lit up in a delighted smile, but there was the edge of arrogance to his voice, as well as pleasure. "I knew it. I knew you'd be like this."

"How?" I snapped, irritated by his insistence on talking when I just wanted to bite him, burying my teeth in the sinewy muscles of his broad shoulders.

"Something in the way you held yourself, like you were holding so much back. I knew you would..."

"Shut up," I snorted, grabbing his wandering hands and pinning them back against the mattress before bringing my mouth down on his. He arched his back to meet me, thrusting up against me as I climbed onto him. For some time, we grappled, half kissing, half wrestling, fighting one another. Our shirts were off, my breasts hanging in his face as he bit at them, trying to catch my nipples in his mouth as I teased him. But as he finally got his hands free and went for the waistband of my leggings, I stopped him.

"Don't stop," he begged, trying to get at me.

"Have you got any condoms?"

A worried expression. "No, have you?"

"Of course not!"

"What do you mean, of course not? You could have some lying around the house."

"I haven't had sex in five years," I protested.

"Five years?" The look of disbelief on his face on his face was hardly flattering. "Christ, that long?"

I rolled off him and flopped back on the bed, trying to catch my breath. "You're going to have to go out to the cornershop at the top of the street and get some."

"Why me? Why can't you go?"

"It's my regular fucking cornershop, they know me too well in there, I'd be embarrassed to go and buy milk again on Monday. You go, you're a stranger, you'll never be here again."

"I might get recognised," he protested.

"In fucking Streatham? Not bloody likely. Dizzee Rascal would get recognised. The singer of some indie band? Not. Shut up, put your shoes on and go and get them."

"Can you at least lend me a hat, and some sunglasses, then?" he complained, though he did sit up and start lacing up his boots. I got up, went in the hall closet and dug out an oversized cap and a pair of aviator sunglasses that would cover at least half his face. "Don't fucking laugh... christ, I can't do my jeans back up. My cock is all... urgh." He adjusted himself and made a face as he pulled his zipper up. "Where's my shirt?" He pulled a jumper off the floor - mine, actually - then pulled his jacket on over it. "I'll be back in two minutes. Don't go anywhere... or change your mind..."

"Hang on, keys," I told him, digging on the dining room table for the spare set.

"Ha ha, I'll just get these copied while I'm out of the house," he teased, then bent down to kiss me. I lay reeling in my bed as I heard his footsteps echo out the yard, then up the street. What the hell was I doing? This was surely the worst mistake ever. But then again, that man was doing things to my body I had been sure that I would ever feel again. This was lust, this was genuine visceral lust, for a man that was willing, in fact, raring to fuck me. Without strings. That genuine rarity, the one night stand, the zipless fuck. This was really going to happen. Flopping back against my pillows, I tried to catch my breath as I heard familiar footsteps past my front windows, then the bang of the yard gate.

"What took you so long?"

"I got asked for a fucking autograph the moment I stepped outside the shop," he moaned.

"But did you fucking get them?"

"Yes. Now shut up and get back on me." He was already pushing off his boots and tearing off his jeans, stumbling over his shoelaces in his haste to get to the bed.

I rode him like an animal. I didn't give a shit for his pleasure, all I wanted was release for myself, five years of tension and frustration to drain out of me, clenching him between my thighs, holding him down, using him like a toy. This wasn't love, or romance, or anything like that, I just wanted an orgasm, to clean out the pipes, pure physical release. He lay back helplessly, alternately scrunching up his eyes in ecstasy or pain, then opening them wide, gazing up at me with glazed pleasure.

"Do you want me to do anything? Can I help you to come, at all?" he begged.

"Yeah, hang on, this isn't working." I climbed off him and stood by the side of the bed, bending over and resting my arms on the mattress. "Get behind me." He obeyed, as compliant as a schoolboy. "Now give me your hand." I took it and thrust it between my legs, rubbing him against my clit as I bucked roughly against him.

"Christ, I don't even have to do anything, do I? You're just using me as a human fuck toy."

"Did you imagine it would be any other way?"

"No, I fucking love it."

I barely heard him. I had found the tiny first spark of orgasm hiding between my legs and I was going for it like a prospector following a seam of metal. Using him as if he were a toy, I coaxed it, wheedled it into life, like a flicker catching alight and slowly fanning into a flame. There it was, caught between his thumb and his cock, growing and pulsing, then finally swelling up into orgasm like a river bursting its banks. As my body exploded, I pushed back against him, trying to squeeze every last pulse of pleasure from between my legs, then fell back against the mattress, exhausted, a light sweat breaking out all over my skin.

"You just came?" he grunted, starting to move against me to take up the slack. I nodded weakly, still to short of breath to speak properly. "Turn over," he begged, pulling at my body, trying to lift me fully onto the bed.

"Why?"

"I want to see your face when I come. Please...?"

I obliged him, letting him fall on top of me, thrusting away between my legs, his face twisted into pain and desire, gurning for a moment, then smiling, biting his lips, closing his eyes then opening them even wider, staring down at me with a rictus grin as he finally started to twitch, crying out, grunting, wheezing then finally letting out a long, low moan as he pushed up inside me, quivering. I felt surprised, more than anything else, shocked that I'd somehow ended up so exposed, lying naked on my back with nothing between us but a thin layer of latex, no camera, no sketchbook, no emotional shield, our sweat and saliva mingled on each others' skin. I wanted to hold onto the dazed afterglow of orgasm for as long as I could, because beyond that lay the numb shock at what I'd just done.

Reaching out, I touched him gently, his face dusted with perspiration, his hair matted. He caught my hand and kissed the inside of my palm. "Christ, Fiona."

"Shhh," I told him, as he crumpled to the bed beside me, not really wanting to talk, not wanting to say anything that might disturb the moment of afterglow. Instead, he just kissed me gently, pressing his lips against my cheek again and again, before tracing the length of my crooked nose with his fingertip. I almost winced reflexively, but let myself relax. I turned, kissed him back softly, then felt myself slip into a swooning daze.

But he did not want to let me doze, snuggling up against me tenderly. First he fussed with the covers, insisting that he was cold, then he tried to drape himself across me, resting his chin against my shoulder and wrapping his legs around mine, his hand snaking across my chest to cup one of my breasts. "You have such an amazing body. I don't understand why you keep it all so covered up in shapeless black clothes."

"Bodies are nothing but trouble," I snorted back, wishing he would stop being so clingy.

"I suppose you'd like it better if we were just two disembodied brains interacting in the astral plane."

"Sounds like heaven." I tried to close my eyes and doze, but unfortunately my mind was crowding with questions again. Was he planning on staying the night? What was I going to do for supper?

At least on that level, he was on the same wavelength. "I saw a curry shop up the street. Are you hungry? Do you want me to go and get supper?"

"That's a brilliant idea." I was actually hungry, it wasn't just that I wanted to hurry him off somewhere while I collected my thoughts and restored my mental calm. The scent of him in my bed was distracting. Even without his clothes, he still smelled vaguely of tweed, of the country, the clean, earthy must of a forest floor after the rain.

"Just a minute, I don't want to get dressed just yet."

"I'll go then." I moved to get out of bed, but he clutched at me. Oh, come on. How long did he expect me to cuddle for? Wasn't sleeping with him supposed to cure all this nonsense? He was supposed to lose interest and go away, not clutch at me like a motherless child. Shrugging him off, I found my jeans and a shirt, and slipped a pair of shoes on. "I'll be back shortly. Make yourself comfortable... but don't go through my stuff?"

"Not even your sketchbook?"

I walked through into the kitchen, found it, then tossed it through the open door onto the bed. "Just that. Nothing else though, OK?"

When I returned, he was curled up in my bed, wrapped up in my dressing gown, still reading. He looked up with a blissful expression as I walked in, then tapped the page gently, a drawing of a tunnel of darkness, made from the trunks of trees, leading through into light. "I like this one. It reminds me of a dream that I had recently."

"Thanks. It was just a thing, that popped into my head, while I was reading - a book about neuroscience, oddly enough. Now I'm sorry, but you can't read that while we eat - I'm terrified of curry stains on my drawings."

"Fair enough." He followed me through into the living room like a puppy.

We chatted lightly, about superficial things, as we ate. The terrifying intellectual intimacy of earlier seemed to have gone. Perhaps fucking him had done the trick, and he would leave me alone now. But it was comfortable enough, amiable, chatting about archetype images in dreams, and how to incorporate them in your work. Shop talk for artists. I could do shop talk.

Finally, he looked at his watch, then stretched. "Do you mind if I take a shower? I'm sure I stink to high heaven."

"Please do. There's clean towels in the airing cupboard."

I shifted the dirty plates to the sink, and cleared off the table. My sketchbook sat abandoned on one side, so I picked it up. I would have to ink my sketch tomorrow, see what I could do with it. In fact, I could make a start on that now, but another image was pushing itself into my mind, inspired by something Thom had said while we were eating. I turned to the next page and picked up my pencil, trying to work it out, letting the lines twist where they wanted until the image started to form. I didn't even notice Thom emerge from the bathroom, swaddled in towels like an old man, until he was bent over me, his wet chin resting on my shoulder as he stared at the picture.

"Yes. Like that. But the sun was lower in the sky, it was that real winter morning kind of light."

"Quiet, I haven't even put the lighting in yet."

"Alright, alright. I won't interfere. I'll leave you to it." He kissed the top of my head lightly then padded through into my bedroom. When he returned, he was redressed and lacing up his shoes. "I'm sorry, I would stay, but I do have to get back to Oxford tonight."

"It's fine. I actually prefer that you're not staying." I had a vague feeling in the back of my head that I was being rude, but I wanted to get the picture down before it faded in my head. "It's difficult for me, having people in my space."

"When will I see you again?"

I finally looked up, slightly irritated, watching him as he tried scrunching his hair back into its usual carefully sculpted mess. The expectation of it, not if, but when. "I don't know."

"Can I call you, when I'm back in London again? I'd like to see you."

"I'd prefer if you texted, instead of calling. I hate phone conversations, they make me feel really uncomfortable."

"OK, I'll text. And email?"

"If you like." I paused. "But stay off my blog."

"You know I won't. I'll be checking Flickr every day to see what you do with that." He nodded towards my drawing.

I regarded him evenly. "If you write songs about me, I will fucking kill you."

He smiled his crooked grin, which completely disarmed me. "I told you, I don't control what I write songs about. It's whatever my celestial antenna wants to send me."

"Get out of here before I hit you with something, you fucking hippie."

He laughed and pulled his jacket on, then walked over to me. Pulling my face up towards his own, he bent down and kissed me, lingering just a little too long on my lips. Then he made a strange gesture that was half wave and half casual salute, and disappeared out of my flat.

I saw him out, making sure that he actually got to his car and went, then walked back into my flat slowly, lost in thought. But I found myself shuffling to the bathroom, my skin prickling with annoyance as I saw how he'd managed to turn everything upside down, my shampoo bottles moved about, the shower head lowered and the water diverted and not reset. And worst of all, there was my special scented Lush soap, not back in its own ceramic soap dish, but discarded in a wet puddle at the bottom of the tub. With a furious glare, I set my things back the way I liked them, then seized the towels he'd used to sweep them into the washing machine.

But as I turned, I caught my reflection in the mirror, and stopped to stare. My hair was disheveled, standing out around my head in a black cloud, my eyes wide, my lips a bruised and puffy dark rose colour, the skin of my chin rubbed red from his beard. Clutching the towels to my chest, I moved closer, taking in the half buttoned shirt, the love-bites across my neck and shoulders. I turned around to examine my back, and there it was, a ribbon of red welts from his stubby fingernails. I didn't even look like myself; I looked like a woman who had very recently been well fucked. This was not me.

"This has got to stop," I told the wanton hussy in the mirror, chucked down the towels in the laundry hamper in the corner, and stalked back out to the living room to find my sketchbook again.


	7. Pursuit

I worked in a feverish state for the rest of the night, pouring glass after glass of red wine as I worked on my sketch, inking it in, then scanning it and importing it to Photoshop to colour it in. I went to bed as the sun came up, falling into an exhausted slumber before waking and getting back to work. I let the dishes pile up in the sink, I forgot to eat, or take showers, surviving on endless cups of tea. I simply couldn't stop drawing, the images coming out of my fingertips in a flood. Fragments of things that Thom had said, they turned over and over in my brain, spinning into phrases then pictures and then sketches. He buzzed in my head like an insect, the thought of him intruding when I least expected it. I went to climb into my bed, and shook the duvet out, only to have a pair of his underpants fall out. Well, that was awkward, I thought to myself, wondering how he'd explained it on returning home.

He hadn't called. On one level, I was relieved, but he hadn't texted either. By the third day of not hearing from him, insecurities were starting to whirr about my head. Oh, don't be stupid, I told myself. What did you expect, sleeping with a married man? You wanted to get rid of him, you got rid of him. All he had wanted was sex, and on getting it, he had vanished, just as I'd predicted. Just as I'd wanted. Right? Except then his words would echo in my head and I found myself musing over one of his peculiar turns of phrase, wanting to interrogate him on what it meant. How had so many of his thoughts got inside my head, intertwined with my own?

Incandescent emailed, reminding me of the whooshing sound of deadlines going by. This was very unlike me - I was normally quite on top of deadlines, turning my work in promptly at the stroke of midnight. I opened up the Word file to check through the interview one more time, and something went through me like a hot knife through butter. I could almost hear his voice in my head, saying the words. Suddenly, I just wanted him there. That crooked smile, the way he cocked his head to one side with a thoughtful expression, the way his hand flitted about his face. I opened one of the photos to check that I had the right version of the files, and just looking at that bright-eyed, smoldering expression on his face, knew I shouldn't open any more.

I wrapped the whole thing up in a pass-word protected zip file, photos and words, and sent it all over in an email, then texted the password to my editor. But while I had my phone out, I couldn't help myself from opening up my text messages and looking at the last exchanges we'd had.

What if I just texted him? No, that was a fucking stupid idea. He would think I was chasing him, and get all weird - well, weirder. Let him contact you. Except I'd told him not to. I put the phone down, then picked it up again. Why was I acting this way over a man? I never got this way over anyone. Ever.

My phone beeped, and I jumped, but it was just a text from Incandescent letting me know that they'd received the email and loved the photos. "These are absolutely beautiful, Fiona. I'm so pleased with how they turned out. But are you sure he's OK with publishing them?"

"I have a signed consent form," I texted back. "And he gave me verbal confirmation that he was fine with the ones I selected. But... I can always double check and get him to send me something in writing."

There. That was the excuse I needed. It was for work, he couldn't complain about that. I brought up his number and composed a text message asking for written confirmation, hit send, then waited, holding my phone gingerly, waiting to see if he texted back. Nothing. Of course. I had been completely stupid, what else had I expected? Thank god I hadn't bothered writing anything personal. Holding onto the phone like a totem, I paged through my texts, checked my emails, even flicked through my notes, but it stayed dead in my palm.

Predictably, the moment I gave up and I put the phone down, it rang.

"Hello, you!" He sounded chipper, almost ebullient, and I couldn't help but grin in response.

"Hey. Did you get my text?"

'Yeah... sorry, I've been in the studio, rehearsing. Big concrete box, no reception in there. What kind of confirmation did you need? I'm assuming a text won't do. Do you want an email? Or do you need a signature? Should I send a letter?"

"An email will be fine."

"Will do, as soon as I get home."

"Thanks." That was my excuse over, but I felt loathe to end the phone call. For a moment, there was dead air between us as I struggled for something to say.

"I'm really glad you texted," he finally blurted out. "I've been worried. You haven't updated your blog, you haven't been on twitter, you haven't posted anything to Flickr in a week..."

I laughed. The readiness with which he admitted it somewhat disarmed his intent. "I thought you were going to stop stalking me."

"I agreed not to call you. I never said I would stop internet stalking you." He paused, and I could only imagine the sheepish expression on his face. "How are you, anyway?"

"I'm OK. I've been stupidly busy. I've been working like a dog. I'm kind of obsessed and can't stop."

"Good, that's good. I'm glad to hear that. Me, too. Getting lots of writing done. I think the band kind of hate me for working them so hard after a long break."

I hung on his words, wondering if he'd been turning over our conversations in the same way. I wanted to blurt out and ask him when he'd be in London again, but I didn't want to give him the wrong idea, encourage him at all, so I caught my tongue. "Alright, then, I'll let you get back to it."

"Thanks. We're just having a tea break, I should get back to them." He paused, but still didn't hang up the phone. "I'll email you that approval, first thing tomorrow."

"That'd be great."

Another, longer pause, then an audible intake of breath. "I might..." He caught himself before he said any more, but his voice had gone up, as if it had been a question. "No, never mind."

"No, what? What were you going to say?"

"I was thinking of coming to London again next week. Would you meet me... just for a coffee or something?"

"That'd be great. I mean it. Ring me when you're in town. I'll come out and meet you." That I could do. That I could definitely do. In fact, I was flooded with a sense of something that felt an awful lot like relief, that this was going to be OK, that he was not going weird on me.

"And update your blog already. I like reading it," he teased.

I got off the phone and logged onto the internet from my laptop. The first thing I did was update my blog, putting in a one-line entry that simply read "stop reading this, hedgehog." 

I checked my work email account, and was surprised to discover an email from Atriedes, enquiring as to my availability over the next few months. For a moment, I contemplated shooting back a snarky reply telling him I was busy washing my hair until the end of time, then thought about the hole in my finances that a few choice Guardian commissions would bring, and responded back nicely that I was, indeed available.

Then I logged onto Twitter - it had been days since I last checked it, and that, too, was very unlike me. My tweetstream was burbling on about the usual sorts of things - from complaining about the Coalition Government, to discussing how sick are the beats in the latest Night Slugs release - but I didn't have the patience to catch up on 3 days, so I merely checked my @ stream. Fifty new followers? How? I checked my retweets - nothing out of the ordinary. I hadn't had anything published online in the past week, which was the only other thing that garnered me huge amounts of new followers. I checked my followers to see if they were spammers - no, they all appeared to be human beings, many of them with Radiohead related screen names. Oh, fuck, no. And then a name caught my eye. No. He hadn't. He had actually followed me. And there was his last tweet.

"back from approving results of photo session with @fiona_ffordd - toe-curlingly embarrassing but nonetheless beautifully taken"

"You could at least put in a plug for @IncandescentMag if you're going to namedrop me" I tweeted back. So we were going to play this game, were we?

My email pinged, and I muttered to myself, come on Hedgehog, you can't have replied back that quickly, but as I went back to check, I realised that I was still logged into my work email. It was from an unfamiliar address, but when I opened it, I realised it was a reply all to the email I'd sent Atriedes, which he'd clearly just forwarded on. Some dot.com outfit, no, I didn't think so, they always paid appallingly badly, forever looking for new ways to shaft you by paying you not by the word, but by the pageview, or some wank like that - oh hang on, it was a short term contract on a daily rate. Yes, hello, I would indeed be interested in that.

I bashed out a formal but friendly reply suggesting we meet up for an interview, then went back to Twitter to see if Thom had replied. But when I checked my @'s there were a dozen random people asking me what Incandescent was and what the photos were for and how they could get hold of copies of them. This was what I hated about Twitter, how public it all was, how instantly connected. So it seemed that my stalker had stalkers, who were perfectly happy to transfer their activities to me. I considered setting my profile to private and blocking them all, but no. That would defeat the purpose of being online in the first place, it was mainly to promote my professional work and keep in touch with contacts. Like that man Atriedes has just introduced me to. I made a mental note to avoid any personal comments about Thom from then on, and logged off.

 

He emailed the next morning, exactly as he said he would, even attaching a scan of a note saying he approved the photos, with his clumsy, childish signature. So I made a low-res copy of the first of the series of drawings I'd been working on, and uploaded it to Flickr, with a brief explanation and a note that these drawings had been inspired by conversations with The Hedgehog.

A few hours later, there was a cryptic comment on it - from a user named Teh_Hedgehog who had only just signed up that morning. Was it Thom? I couldn't quite tell. Or was it one of his stalkers? If he could find my blog and my Flickr from my Twitter, anyone could, really. It made me feel so exposed, violated, knowing that there were strangers out there watching him watching me in some reflexive internet circle jerk. Teh_Hedgehog's profile wasn't filled in, but almost as I watched, a picture appeared in their photos. It was a drawing of a pinecone-like creature rolled into a ball. I knew that drawing style. I knew the spiky, childish handwriting that it had signed it "HH." I breathed a vague sigh of relief, added him as a contact, then went to scan the next drawing in the series.

It was like a game, back and forth. I would upload the next image in the series, and he would scribble his response into a drawing and upload it himself, with another cryptic comment on my Flickr. But at least he had got the hint and stopped mentioning me on Twitter. I was happy to play with him, so long as it was clandestine. I didn't want to be sucked into his world, I didn't want to have to shut myself down and lock all my accounts in order to maintain a normal conversation with him. I was enjoying this, it was exactly the kind of puzzle that I needed to keep me occupied in the boring hours between trying to scoop for commissions from various editors. I was proud of the Incandescent piece, but it was hardly going to pay my mortgage. My freelancer's life was an eternal round of hustle, hustle, hustle which took the hell out of me, but it had to be done.

 

Thom's phone call, when it came, took me by surprise. I was in town, fresh from a meeting with a promising meeting with Atriedes' friend, the publisher of TheCultureDesk.com, a popular web-based portal in Soho, looking for a commissioning editor to help revamp their reviews and criticism section. It wasn't exactly my line of expertise, but I would be working with a programmer, the three-month contract would fix a giant hole in my finances and maybe finally clear my small but persistent overdraft, and besides, it was excellent material for my CV. When my phone buzzed, I actually thought it might be them again, confirming some detail of the contract, so I was mildly surprised to see Thom's name on my display screen and hear his voice in my ear.

"The elusive Hedgehog," I giggled into my phone. I wouldn't put up with this from anyone else, but he had slowly started to amuse instead of irritate me.

"Ha ha, do you like that? I thought I was being well clever."

I beamed as I walked down the street, narrowly avoiding waking into a bike messenger. "Where are you?"

"I'm in London. Erm, in Soho I think. I don't have the car, and without my map I'm fucking lost."

"What a coincidence. I'm in Soho, too." Had he planned this? No, I'd not even told him about my meeting. "Where are you? Or rather, tell me, what are you near? I'll come and meet you."

"I'm down a side street, but I'm looking at a pub called the John Snow? There's a pump or something across the road, I'll go and stand by it so you can spot me easily."

"I know exactly where you are. I'l be there in three minutes."

He was standing like a tourist in the middle of the square, looking completely lost and out of place, with a huge backpack slung across his shoulders. His face was obscured with a huge pair of aviator sunglasses, and a wooly hat pulled low on his face as if he was trying to be anonymous, but everything about him, especially his mud-stained boots, screamed that he was from out of town, and a couple of beggars were circling, though he was doing his best to be polite.

"There you are," I called, waving to him as I strode over. Thankfully, he remembered, and did not try to hug me, but I conceded a kiss on his cheek.

"I am so grateful to see you. Can we just go, now, please."

"This way," I told him, leading him along the maze of back streets. "Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know. Just... away. This is much better. Where were you going, before I rang? Did I interrupt anything?"

"No, I was just going to go record shopping, to be honest. I wanted to celebrate."

"What are you celebrating?"

I beamed with pride. "I've just won a three-month contract. I have a proper job now. In fact, I will take you out to lunch to celebrate it."

"Proper job?" he looked strangely disappointed. "But what about your art? What about your writing?"

"Oh, I don't have to go into an office or anything, I'm freelance, I can work from home, but it solves a rather large hole in my lifestyle budget."

"I suppose... but why do you have to get a proper job? Why don't you sell your artwork?"

"Why don't you just sell your children?" I snorted.

It was hard to read his face with his eyes shielded with his huge mirrored glasses, but he shrugged his shoulders. "Don't tell me you've been bitten by the don't-sell-out-ever bug. You can sell your work without compromising your integrity if you go about it in the right order."

"Look. Do you want to go record shopping, or do you just want to go to lunch?"

"What record shop?" He crumpled his shoulders petulantly. "I don't want to go anywhere I'm going to get recognised."

"This is London. No one's going to hassle you. No one cares. But I'm going to Phonosound anyway, so I don't think it will be a problem. They're far too cool to make a fuss out of you, Hedgehog."

He twisted his mouth into a mock pout. "I like Phonosound. I'll go to Phonosound if you can stand to be seen with anyone as uncool as me there. Fuck, I've bought records at Phonosound mail order. I've even played some on my radio show, I'll have you know. I've probably promoted their records more than they have."

I was going to tease him about being paranoid, but then remembered the 100 new followers that I'd picked up since he tweeted my name, and closed my mouth. The record shop was fairly quiet when we got there, only a couple of low key DJ types sorting through the racks. I perused the flyers and posters, trying to get a radar for any good parties going on at the weekend, and picked up a few copies of free zines, while Thom immediately made a beeline for the vinyl.

After browsing through the stacks of CDs, I walked over and joined him in rummaging through twelve inches and white-labels. Looking through the few sleeves he had already picked out, I snorted at a couple of them.

"What?" he protested. Even through the sunglasses, I could detect the defensiveness around the edges of his face.

"No, it's fine. You like what you like, it's just not for me. That, however..." I pointed at the 12" single he had stopped at. "That is one of the tracks of the year, without a doubt."

"Really?" He picked it out and turned it over, frowning at the little written description on the back. "I'll give it a try. I trust your taste."

"Don't trust my taste for it," I teased, picking it up and carrying it over to the customer turntables, though I was sneakingly proud that he seemed to be making the effort to impress me. "Give it a listen. Sorry, we can hear this one?" I asked the young man behind the counter, too busy posing under his haircut to notice us much. I cued it up and handed the headphones to Thom.

He listened carefully, an expression of intent concentration on his face, his fingertips tapping at the edge of the headphones as it played. "Yeah, I like this," he finally conceded, gingerly removing the stylus from the record. "I'll definitely get this. Now what else do you think I should hear?"

"Well, let me see..." 

He shook his head slowly as I flipped through the racks with an expert's eye, pulling out records and handing them to him with a ten-word capsule review. "I don't think I've ever met a girl who's as into records as you are."

"I'm not into records as fetish objects, I'm just into music. And you need to start hanging out with a better quality of girl."

"My missus would still be listening to fucking Doors albums if I hadn't taken her CD collection in hand."

"You go near my copy of Morrison Hotel and I'll cut your ears off," I mock threatened, hitting him playfully on the side of his head with an empty Emika sleeve.

He cackled with laughter, then frowned, distracted by the list of remixers on the B-side. "I don't have this one, this looks brilliant."

I was in my element, going through racks of vinyl, pulling out record after record, tracing the artists through the genres, trying to work out what he was responding to in the tracks he liked, in order to predict the next ones I should recommend to him. Unlike most men, he actually seemed happy to relax and sit back, and not turn it into a territorial pissing competition about who knew the most obscure artists. In turn, I admitted that there were huge swathes of music that he knew a lot more about than I did, and let him try to work out some unexpected artists that I might enjoy. I knew way more about the underground sounds bubbling out of South London, but his familiarity with the more obscure reaches of the LA rave scene put me to shame. He knew more about the Berlin techno scene, but I knew more about Oslo's Balearic beat, and we agreed to disagree on the new generation of Italo-House, as I could not sell him on Tuccillo.

Geek to geek, there really was nothing I enjoyed more than a bout of pure unadulterated music nerd conversation, interspersed with snippets of records. I would have been happy to stay the rest of the afternoon, until my stomach rumbled even louder than bassline of the post-dubstep anthem we were trying to make up our minds over.

"What was that?" he laughed, looking down at my stomach. "Fiona's Smokebelch remix?"

"If I could get Sabres of Paradise to remix my lunch I'd be the happiest girl in the world."

"Is this your way of telling me you want to stop shopping and go to lunch?"

"No, I'm fine," I insisted, realising suddenly how comfortable we had become with each other, if body noises made us amused rather than embarrassed. "I am perfectly happy to do this all day long." Unfortunately, my stomach went again, even louder.

"Let's pay for these and get some food, I insist." Picking up his vast pile of records, he tried to sort his 'maybes' into 'yes' and 'no' before moving towards the cash register. "Give me yours," he directed, pointing at the two 12"s I had decided I couldn't live without.

"No way. This Todd Terje 12" is pretty rare, it'll set you back a bomb."

"Come on, I don't care, I've got to put it all on the card anyway, it's easier to ring it up in one order." After some hemming and hawing, I conceded, and put my records in the pile with his, as the clerk rang them up.

Everything was fine, until Thom handed over his credit card. The clerk, who had been casually indifferent to us until then, looked at the name on the card, then looked down at the small, wirey man in front of the counter, and did a complete double take. "No way, man! Shee-it," he drawled in a fake accent somewhere between Hackney and Brooklyn. "Thomas E. Yorke, in my shop? Aw, mate, you're famous and shit."

Thom cringed. I had never seen a person's body tense up quite like that, like he was a coiled spring being wound up. "Erm, yes. Thanks. Um, can I just pay for my records, and... go?"

"This is crazy! Jim, come out here a moment. We gotta get a picture of this. In fact... shee-it. We got one of your records on sale at the moment. That track you did with Modeselektor. Can you just sign a couple of them, for us, so we can say we've got autographed copies?"

"I would really rather not," Thom replied defensively. If he could have put the records down and walked away, he would have, but the clerk was still holding his credit card.

"Mate, why not? It's no skin off your teeth? I'll just get the records and you can just put your name on them, won't take ten minutes..."

"What? I can just take ten minutes of my life signing your records, so that you can double the prices on them?" Thom snapped. "I do not mind signing records for real fans, if that makes the albums more special for them. But giving my time, for free, so that collector scum can make a killing off my work? For nothing? No, I really don't think so."

"Aw, man, what you gotta be like that for?" drawled the hipster, turning from obsequious to vicious in a heartbeat. "Fucken stuck-up rock star attitude, like you think your shit don't stink. Well, your band are a load of shit anyway, so I don't care if you sign our records or not."

"Can you give me my card, please?" Thom practically snarled. People were starting to turn around and stare.

Deciding to take matters into my own hands, I placed my hand on Thom's shoulder to calm him, then smiled at the hipster. "Look, I'm sorry," I explained, gesturing for him to come closer. "Can we just..." As the hipster bent across the counter, thinking that maybe I was going to talk Thom into changing his mind, I reached out and snatched the credit card out of his hands. "Thank you. Let's go..."

I practically frog-marched Thom out of the shop as the hipster hurled abuse after us. "Fuckin' stuck-up arrogant rock star shitbag, who the fuck do you think you are anyway, Thom E fuckin' Yorke? Fuck you, and fuck Radiohead anyway, fuckin' sell-out hipster pussy music."

"Let it go," I told him, as soon as we were outside, marching down the street. "I'm really sorry about that, I had no idea. They're not usually like that in there."

He clenched and unclenched his fists as he walked, the side of his face twitching. "Fucking... this is what I mean. Toxic waste culture. People fucking impose on you, then get really fucking aggressive if you say no, you won't put up with it."

"You were more than reasonable," I told him, my hand still on his back, rubbing his shoulders gently between the straps of his backpack, trying to make his spring uncurl beneath my fingertips. "That bloke was an idiot."

"What pisses me off is, I wanted those records, but there's no way I'm giving money to that idiot's shop now."

"It's OK," I assured him. "I'll send you a list, you can buy them online. Come on, let's go and get lunch. You up for Vietnamese noodles?" He nodded slowly, and I led him down a back alley and along a side-street until I came to a small, dark, cave-like door. "I know it doesn't look like much, but their food is amazing."

"Do they do vegan food? There's an awful lot of... dead squid and things hanging around."

"It's fine, they'll make it to order. Trust me on this one." I walked up to the counter, and asked the woman "Two noodles, please - vegetable soup. No fish, no meat, no egg. Just bean curd."

"Coming right up. Take a seat anywhere," the woman waved.

Thom looked around a bit suspiciously at the open cafeteria style tables, but I gestured him through into the back room, where there were a row of booths completely out of sight of the rest of the room, let alone the street. "No one will bother you here, trust me."

"Well, I hope so. At least I hope there's a back alley if it gets hairy."

"I can't imagine Soho getting that hairy on a Tuesday afternoon," I teased. Slowly, as he dumped the backpack, and removed the sunglasses and the hat, and fluffed up his hair into its usual studied mess, the tourist disappeared and the familiar hedgehog reappeared.

"Don't tempt fate," he warned, then smiled up at the waitress as she deposited a pot of green tea on the table. "Cam on, thank you," he told her, with a slight bow and a smile. It seemed so odd, at that moment, how people could accuse him of being arrogant when he made such an effort to be polite to complete strangers.

Our food arrived, and we slipped back into easy conversation again. As he ate, his prickliness seemed to die down, his good humour slowly restored. Perhaps that was the solution when he got spiky - fill him full of carbohydrates and make him relax. He slurped his soup loudly, sucking up noodles like a joyful schoolboy, even as they showered soup into his beard. At first, I tried to be restrained, winding my noodles up carefully on my chopsticks, but his childishness was irrepressible and oddly contagious. It was almost as if his messiness gave me permission to make my own mess. When we finished, he patted his face carefully, drying off his beard, and looked at me evenly.

"It's a shame about that Todd Terje record," he sighed. "I suppose I can always order the rest of my records online, but that one bothers me - you really liked that one and I know it's out of print. I would have liked to have bought it for you."

"You know, you don't have to buy me things, to make me like you," I told him.

"I'm not trying to make you like me, I'm just trying to make you happy. My success, it's such a... I mean, what's the point of having money if you can't use it to make your friends happy?"

His earnest expression made me want to believe him, but I always had such trouble believing that people weren't trying to buy me. Too long hanging around the edges of the music industry, I suppose. Finally, I shrugged. "We can always try Sister Ray, or Reckless or somewhere."

He brightened. "I suppose we could... though, are you not sick of record shopping yet?"

"The day I am sick of record shopping, the universe will surely end."

"Right." He beamed.

We left the restaurant in a much better mood than we'd arrived, and made our way up through Soho to Berwick Street. He pressed his nose against the glass of the window, marveling at all the vinyl on display, then we made our way inside. We both made a beeline for the vinyl and started digging through, chuckling as we showed one another suggestions. It was dark inside the shop, so he pushed his sunglasses up onto his head to peer at the lettering on white labels.

This, however, was a mistake. A pair of Japanese girls in the front of the shop noticed him and immediately started giggling. In his anonymous clothes and nondescript shaggy indie hair, he generally escaped notice, but the moment anyone saw his eyes, it was completely obvious that it could only be him and no one else. The girls, though, at least, were polite and respectful, approaching him slowly and asking if he perhaps had time to sign his autograph for them? I could see the fear and annoyance flicker across his face, and for a moment I thought he was going to snap at them, but the smaller of the two stepped into the lull of the conversation.

"I saw you at Budokan, I spent two months saving up to buy tickets on the floor, it is still one of the best concerts I ever saw in my life," she gushed, her eyes huge.

At that, he seemed to relent, shrugging and smiling. "Alright, sure, what are your names?" He accepted the pen and paper and scribbled a note for each of them. "I'm glad you enjoyed the show, we were jet-lagged out of our minds, so it was a very, very weird experience for us."

"It wasn't weird, it was beautiful," said the first.

"Very beautiful," agreed the second. "The most beautiful music I've ever heard. Like the sky opening up, and the heavens singing." They looked so adorable, the three of them, two tiny heads of black hair with his blond head, not much taller, bobbing between.

"Do either of you have a camera, or a phone?" I asked. "Would you like me to take your picture?"

Thom groaned, but assented as one of the girls pulled out an iPhone. "Oh, alright. She's a decent photographer." He glanced up at me with a wink. Running his fingers quickly through his hair to make it stand up, he pulled his sunglasses off, then posed between the two girls. They both bowed, thanked him very politely and scurried off, giggling. The whole thing was over in under five minutes, and had been completely adorable from start to finish. I grinned at him as he smiled proudly. "Alright, it's not all bad. It's things like that, that make it worthwhile in the end." He paused. "Anyway, have you found that Todd Terje record?"

"No, it's just as well, the vinyl in this place is overpriced anyway."

"It doesn't matter, I will buy it for you if we find it."

"Alright, let's try Reckless - or MVE if it comes down to it."

"Lead on..." As he opened the door, he placed his hand on the small of my back to gesture me through, and I recoiled slightly. He was about to apologise and remove it, when suddenly, a bright light went off in our faces. At first I thought it was a reflection of a car headlight, or maybe the sunlight bright after the dark of the shop, but I felt him tense beside me. "Oh, for fucks sake..." he snorted, holding up his hand. And then I saw the photographer, not three feet away from us. I had no idea how long he'd been there - he must have been waiting for us to come out of the shop.

"Piss off," I snarled. "Don't you have anything better to do?"

"Don't say anything," Thom warned under his breath. "Don't interact with them, don't speak to them at all, no matter what they say, just don't react."

"Come on, Thommy, who's the new girlfriend? That's not Ruth," the man sneered as if in confirmation of his instructions.

This was fucking absurd. I was not a pop star, I was a journalist. I might know this photographer, in another capacity - might have commissioned work off him, might have bought his snapshots for a magazine. Why was he doing this to me?

"Who's the new bird? She's fit, Thommy, does she have a name? What's your name, doll? Come on, sweetheart, give us a smile, come on sugar-tits."

"Princess fucking Margaret," I snapped back, taking Thom by the arm and steering him down the street. The photographer followed, getting right up in our faces, snapping the lens really close and letting off the flash in an attempt to provoke us. Thom stared ahead with steely determination, one hand raised, but his face completely miserable. "We've got to get out of here," I insisted. Record shopping was completely out of the question now.

"Can we hop in a cab or something?" Thom suggested.

"Look at the traffic, it's not moving, we'd be trapped."

"I wish I had my fucking car..." he muttered, even as the photographer was blatantly getting in his way. It seemed so weird to be having this conversation as someone was trying to incite my friend into violence, and I just stood there a few feet away, unable to stop it.

"Look, can you please stop?" I addressed the photographer directly. "I'm a journalist myself. I probably know your fucking editor."

"Honey, I gotta make a living same as you do," he shrugged raising his camera to try and take a picture down my shirt. It wasn't even possible to see my breasts under my baggy clothes, it was simply a provocative gesture designed to elicit a reaction.

I turned back to Thom. "Right, on the count of three, do as I do. One... two... run!" As I shouted, I grabbed him by the arm and yanked him, pulling him back up the street, in the opposite direction from the paparazzi, and breaking into a run.

"OK, run," shouted the paparazzi behind us. "Why you always gotta run? You know, I've got a fucking bicycle!" Before we'd even reached the end of the street, he was overtaking us, his camera extended to capture us as we flailed up the street.

I swerved down the cross street, pulling Thom behind me, but the photographer was close behind. I took another corner at speed and trotted down the next street, then spotted a pedestrians-only alleyway, with staggered metal bars to dissuade cyclists. "Down here," I yelped and pulled Thom into the alley. Even as our footsteps echoed down the lane, I could hear the photographer behind us.

"Well, that's easy. I can just chain my bike here and... or I can cycle round the other side, it's up to you."

"This is fucking stupid," Thom spat, trying to catch his breath. "This never happens in Oxford. I fucking hate London."

As we emerged into the next street, I looked up and down, but the photographer had not reappeared. Oddly, I didn't feel irritated as much as excited, energised by the chase. But then again, it was just a game for me, I was not the quarry. Looking up and down the street, I recognised where we had emerged, and was struck with a cunning plan. "Come on," I urged, taking him by the wrist and pulling him away. The photographer's bicycle appeared again at the other end of the street, but I saw him before he saw me. Never mind, we were there. Grabbing Thom by the shoulders, I pulled him off balance, off the street and into the doorway. I pushed him roughly up against the wall, out of sight, and thrust my body between him and the street. He looked up at me, surprised, breathing hard, his one eye huge and round with fear, the other narrow, regarding me suspiciously. For half a minute, I held him there, his breathing laboured, but the bicycle whirled by outside. It was as I thought. The photographer knew what Thom looked like, and was searching for him - he hadn't got a very good look at me beyond my tits.

As Thom's eyes narrowed and he started to get that odd, slightly soppy look, I realised I was pressed up against him in a way it would be very easy for him to misinterpret. I moved backwards awkwardly. "I'm sorry, I need you to move, I think you might be standing in front of the doorbell."

"You're not just going to ring the bell of some random stranger's house, are you?" he asked, panicking.

"No, don't worry. I know exactly where we are." I found the doorbell and rang it, and the door clicked open behind us.

"Fiona! Haven't seen you in ages," greeted a tall woman with close-cropped blonde hair.

"I know, I know... I'm really sorry."

"You're not exactly a member here any more, are you, Fi?" She said it with a slight air of world-weariness, as if it pained her more not to let me in than it pained me to be on the street.

"Bloody freelancing, I know, I had to let it lapse, but Cynthia, please. We're having a spot of bother with a paparazzi and we really need to get off the street before he comes back."

"Well, isn't that ironic," Cynthia replied with a twisted smile. For a moment she seemed to waver, then she stood aside. "In you come. Is he still out there? I am actually quite in the mood to crack a few lenses. Is that him on the bicycle?"

"No violence, please, Cyn, my friend here is a pacifist."

The disappointed expression on her face seemed almost real as she closed the door behind us. "I won't make you sign in, though. We all know who you are here."

Thom looked around, completely intrigued, seeing women, clearly wealthy and powerful women of every age draped about over furniture, interspersed only occasionally with the rare man. "What on earth is this place? Is this some kind of lesbian underworld?"

I laughed aloud at the idea. "God no. It's a private members club for female business leaders, entrepreneurs and media figures. I used to be a member here, back when I was commissioning editor during the dot-com boom and could still afford it. They're absolutely sound, very discreet."

"I feel like I'm the only man in here," he mumbled, shifting his weight from one foot to the other nervously. The encounter with the paparazzi had completely unsettled him, driven him back into his hedgehog shell.

Clearly, he was not going to settle down with all these people around. "Cyn," I begged, catching her eye. "It's very busy in here this afternoon. Have you got any day rooms available?"

"Now, Fiona, you know that day rooms are for members only..."

Thom perked up. "How much do they cost?"

"They're free, for members, on a first come, first served basis."

"What's a membership cost?"

"You can't be a member, Thom, you're a man, and anyway, you need references, guarantees, you need two existing members to propose you..."

"I meant for you. How much would it cost to reinstate your membership?"

"I can't afford it."

"I can."

"It's expensive, Thom, leave it."

"I owe you a Todd Terje record."

"It's several hundred pounds!"

"I owe you several dozen Todd Terje records." He moved towards me. "Please. Let me do something for you."

Cynthia had already stepped behind the registry. "Well, it looks like we never actually closed your account. We could just quietly sign you up again at the old renewal rate, which would be more reasonable."

"Do it." Thom handed over his credit card without even blinking. He didn't even look at the amount as he signed. To be a fucking rock star.

Cynthia processed the payment casually, then took a key from a hook on the wall and handed it to me. "I believe room 203 is free. Second floor, at the back. Would you care for any refreshments?"

"I would kill for a pot of the special breakfast tea." My mouth watered at the thought of it.

"And a bottle of wine," Thom added. "White wine. House white, whatever you've got, I don't care. Just put it all on the card."

We climbed the stairs, once so familiar to me from a hundred misspent nights, then made our way back towards the room. Everything dripped slightly well-worn but understated elegance, thick pile rugs that dipped in the middle, beautiful antique furniture that had started to lose its shine in patches, but was still quite obviously the real thing, rather than distressed shabby chic.

The room was spacious, filled with overstuffed chairs of indeterminate age, with a day bed pushed against the wall. Technically, you weren't supposed to stay overnight, to avoid being taxed as a hotel, but the rules were as lax as the staff were discreet. So long as you did not spend more than 24 hours in the same room, people turned a blind eye to where you kipped. I'd slept off many a boozy hangover during lunch hours during my office hours years.

Thom looked around, curious, dumping his bag on the floor before flopping down on the day bed to pull off his boots. There was a soft tap on the door, and a waitress brought in our tea, and a bottle of wine, deposited them on the low table, then exited swiftly and discreetly. We were alone. And that was when it clicked, just how dodgy this must have looked. Thom had made himself comfortable, his shoes off, his coat discarded, his feet up, stretched out on the bed. What on earth must he think I had in mind, bringing him to a place like this? Yes, people brought their lovers here, of course they must. But I had thought only of getting us off the street and away from the press. Well, the other press. The gutter press. It felt so strange to have switched sides, to be the one on the run.

"Do you want tea first, or wine?" I asked briskly, trying to keep a formal air.

"Oh, tea, please," he answered, rubbing his eyes. I gave it to him with one lump of sugar and no milk, like I remembered. "You're a star." Pulling himself upright, he sat up just enough to sip from his cup, leaning against the wall as he studied me carefully. "You know, when you pushed me against the wall, earlier, I thought... well." He let his voice drop for a moment, as an odd expression came into his eyes. "That really excited me. And I thought for a moment, you were going to..."

"No," I snapped. "I was just trying to get you off the street."

"I liked it. I really love it when you kind of throw me around, like I'm just a rag doll." He paused, sipping his tea. "I think you liked it, too."

"I think you might be projecting."

"You're really going to try and tell me, that you've been drawing those intensely erotic images, all week, and you haven't been thinking... about fucking me... at all?"

"That's not the same thing, and you know it. Fantasy is another world."

"But you and I have been lovers in this world, too, now."

"Do we have to go through this every damn time? Can't we just skip it?"

"OK, we can just skip to the bit where you come over here, press me down against the bed and rape me senseless. That's fine with me." He was grinning from ear to ear as he sipped his tea, and I knew that although he was joking, he was still half serious. He was so beautiful when he smiled that it made me knees go weak. 

But instead, I turned away, bracing myself against the chair so my legs didn't shake. "Knock it off."

"What are you so afraid of?"

"I'm not afraid of you," I insisted, finishing my cup of tea and moving on to the bottle of wine. "I'm just afraid that you are going to demand more from me than I am able to give. You know that I'm..." I cut myself off, just as I had been about to tell him that I was asexual. But I wasn't exactly acting like an asexual now, was I? I had been so sure of who and what I was, until he had turned up and turned my world and perhaps my entire identity upside-down. Could I still honestly call myself an asexual if I was, indeed, having sex? Wait, were we having sex, in the present tense? When had I started thinking of it as an ongoing thing? Every time I set a boundary, he tore up the map and scribbled all over it. "You know this is never going to be... a normal affair."

"What's a normal affair? Coz I don't have a clue. This is new ground for me." He looked up at me, his eyes no longer laughing, suddenly very clear and intimidatingly blue.

"Meaning what? How many affairs do you generally have?"

He climbed off the bed and walked over to me, kneeling down before me, then finally wrapping his arms around my waist and laying his head in my lap. For a moment, I froze, then slowly put my hand on his head and started to play with his hair, pulling out the knots where it spilled out over his collar. "I've been lying to you. This is the first _affair_ I've ever had."

"So you and your partner don't 'practice managed non-monogamy,'" I responded dryly. The old Fiona would have ripped her hand from his hair and thrown him out of her room, but I sat perfectly still, except for the small movement of fingers and thumb against the side of his head.

"No, we do. We're both committed socialists, we don't believe in owning people, like property." I wanted to point out the irony of this, coming from a multi-millionaire, but I held my tongue. "We wouldn't be able to put up with my touring for so long if we didn't. But this is quite different from sleeping with someone, as a one-time thing, while I'm on tour. I'm out of my depth. And I am terrified that you are just going to crumple me up like a paper ball and throw me away."

"I warned you, before we did this."

"I know, and I'm stupid." He nuzzled his face against my lap and my traitor libido started to stir, deep inside me.

"I liked fucking you," I blurted out before I could even stop myself. He tightened his grip on me for a second or two, then relaxed, and I could feel his smile. "You're right. I really enjoyed fucking you. It brought things up in me, that I thought didn't even exist."

"I knew you were dormant, not extinct."

"But I don't want this. I can't stand the idea of being in a relationship. It makes me feel like I can't breathe. It makes me feel like I'm being pushed into a box, which gets smaller and smaller, and if any part of me doesn't fit, the other person just lops off one of my limbs to get me to squish into it."

"There's a film like that..."

"Shut up."

"Boxing Fiona."

"You're not boxing me. I won't let you do it. _Oh no, don't you put me in that box_."

" _You know what you can do with those locks, bet your life I'll come crawling out again, you'll have to deal with me then_ ," he sang quietly, completing the rest of the song, then turned his head up to face me. "You'll have to deal with me then."

When he turned his dark blue eyes on me, I melted. Or rather, I wanted to melt so much, I wanted to just bend down and put my arms around him and press my lips against his and melt into him, but something just wouldn't let me. I sat there stiffly, feeling awkward. This was not my life, this beautiful man was not lying in my lap, in this beautiful club. " _This is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife_ ," I muttered under my breath.

"What are you afraid of?"

"Could you do this? Could you do what I ask? Come when I call, and only when I call you, do what I want, and then leave when I ask? Can you keep things separate? Can you keep the intellectual frisson, the creative charge we get off one another, the aesthetic interplay, can you keep that in one box, and keep the sex in another? Without asking me for a relationship that I can't possibly give you?"

"I already have a relationship. I don't want you to be my wife, I've already got one. What do I want another for?" He saw the irritation flicker across my face, but this time he got it right. "I didn't lie to you, we're not married. But that doesn't make her not my wife."

"I understand, I think..." I paused, wondering if I even dared to articulate what I really wanted. "Can you be my friend, and yet still..."

" _I don't want to be your friend, I just want to be your lover_ ," he interrupted petulantly.

I pulled back, taking my hands from his hair. "Are you just acting out your song with me, then? Is that all this is about?"

"Fuck, no. I didn't even..." He sat back on his heels, gazing up at me. "Have you never had that thing, where you write a song, or you make a piece of art, and at the time, it just feels like it just come to you, from nowhere, from outer space. And then six months, a year later, you find yourself in that exact situation? Like you predicted the future?"

It was my turn to bite my lip and stare back at him. "I have. How on earth could you know? But I don't think it's predicting the future. I think that the subconscious mind, the id, the libido, the bits of you that are filtered out before they even hit your perception. That is the bit of us, that makes our art. And it is aware of things that we want, that we desire, that we will subconsciously move heaven and earth to get, way before we are. It comes out in dreams, it comes out in art, but it's already in us."

"So sometimes we make parallel worlds, and sometimes parallel worlds make us," he teased, reaching out to touch my face. This time I let him, allowing him to cup my face in his hands, then reach up and gently kiss me. "Come to bed."

It was nowhere near as frenzied as our first coupling. I was sober for a start, though I gulped down the rest of my glass of wine to try and fortify my nerves. I pushed him onto the bed, and held him down, because he seemed to love that, arching his back to meet me, his face dusted with a blissful smile as he pretended to struggle. As I stripped his clothes off, I looked at him, as carefully as the first night I'd photographed him, enjoying the lines and planes of his body. He was such an oddly shaped little man, with his broad shoulders and barrel chest, then his slim hips and short legs, but the sight of him excited me, made me want to rake my teeth across his skin.

"Condoms?" I asked, breathlessly.

"In the bag." I climbed off him and opened it, but saw only a pair of jeans, a plaid shirt, a kit bag. So he planned to stay over. "No, front pocket. Behind my wallet." I dug, and found one, and returned to him, rolling it down onto him before climbing back onto him, impaling myself on his cock.

The bed squeaked as we moved together, and he laughed and grabbed the headboard to stop it, thrusting up into me more gently. I tried to find a better angle, but it was hopeless, so I grabbed the duvet at the bottom of the bed, spread it over the floor, then pulled him down onto it. We struggled in a sweaty heap, kissing, biting, half sitting, half kneeling, but tangled together, grinding away at one another. Finally, I backed him up against the bed, then turned around, pushing him into me from behind, grabbing his hands and thrusting them between my legs, rubbing from both sides. Yes, there was an orgasm down in there, if I could just squeeze it out.

"Oh my god, that is too much," he panted. "I am going to come if you keep doing that..."

"Come then," I insisted. "Because I'm not going to stop."

He sunk his teeth into my shoulder and started to shake, quivering as he thrusted, but I couldn't stop. Finally he cried out slightly, and lay still, but still I kept going, in pursuit of that elusive orgasm. "I love it when you just use me like a toy," he gasped, trying to catch his breath.

"Shut up and help me."

"I can't move," he chuckled, pressing his thighs against the back of mine, but then he put his mouth on the back of my neck, nuzzling my hair out of the way with his nose, and started, gently, to nibble. Yes, there was the orgasm. I grabbed at the end of it and pulled, teased, and cajoled it until finally it stretched out and broke across my body.

We lay there for several minutes, just dozing lightly, until he picked up the blanket and tried to pull it around us. "This isn't going to work. We should get back on the bed." Sleepily, I complied, allowing him to wrap his arms around me and drape the covers over us both. "You can't be that tired. It's only late afternoon. We could finish our tea, have dinner, and then do it all over again."

"Are you staying over?" I asked, turning to face him, tracing tiny circles in the hair on his chest. The clothes in his bag certainly seemed to point that way.

"If you'll have me. If the lesbian underworld downstairs will let me."

I bent down and kissed his collarbone gently. It was strange, the whorls of hairs that chased across his chest, which areas they left bare. Resting my head tentatively against his shoulder, I stared his milky white skin, the tiny hollow between the sinews of his neck, filled with freckles that seemed to burst their bounds and cascade down across his chest. "Did you plan this?"

"I planned the contingency. I'm not expected home until tomorrow."

I wished he wouldn't talk about home. I wished he wouldn't talk about his family, his other life, but in a strange way, it calmed me, knowing that he would never ask too much of me. I closed my eyes, and in the afterglow of orgasm, I dozed, and didn't even complain when he clutched me close, his arms locked around my waist.


	8. Woods

I was restless when I woke from my doze, and consumed with a slight sense of cabin fever. Pushing Thom's arms off me, I crept to the small old fashioned toilet and relieved myself, then washed my face. I wanted to take a bath, but there was barely a shower. Glancing out the tiny sliver of a window, I tried to guess the time - early evening, from the faint sliver of sunset still showing over London rooftops? When I returned to our room, Thom was awake. He had dug through his bag and pulled out his own sketchbook.

"That's not fair. I didn't bring mine."

"No, I wanted you to look at mine."

"Why?" I paused, eyeing him suspiciously from across the room. Even though we were standing naked opposite each other, it seemed like there were still boundaries I felt loathe to cross.

"Because I don't think it's fair. I wander through your thoughts, but you don't ever get to see mine. I think that you should." He paused, holding the sketchbook in his lap like an animal, his fingers tracing the binding almost affectionately. His eyes widened as he extended his arms, holding it towards me like an offering.

Making a diversion across the room, I poured another two glasses of wine, then climbed back into bed. Taking the book from him, I lay it on the bedspread, staring at the heavy black cover, well-worn from constant use. I turned the first page, confronted with lines of text snaking between writhing doodles, half formed thoughts and snippets of lyrics, then started to slowly page through it. It was an act of trust, to let someone read your sketchbook - especially a sketchbook that seemed to be half journal, like this one was - even I could tell that this was a huge gesture for him, as he curled up beside me, watching over my shoulder with one hand half-covering his mouth.

He was much, much messier than me, that much was obvious. All the chaos he so carefully controlled in his life spilled out across the paper. Images and words and cut out bits of paper ran riot across the pages, all in a jumbled heap, paying little attention to page breaks, unlike my neat, orderly rows of images. His mind seemed to work like a sieve, sifting through layers of meaning. The same phrases kept turning up, repeated over and again a few pages later until they blossomed from random strings of word salad to lyrics and couplets, verse and chorus, sometimes with the chords pencilled in above. Strange beasts ran around the margins, the same little man with huge eyes and a furrowed brow sometimes chasing them, sometimes being chased by them. It wasn't until I turned to switch on the light as the room grew dark, and saw him, sitting curled in a ball, his pupils huge, his eyes almost black, that I realised they were all him.

The sudden familiarity shocked me. Here we were, lying naked together in bed, each others' body fluids still fresh on mouths and genitals, and yet it was these twisted self portraits that truly brought home our intimacy. For a moment, I was consumed by the old urge, to get up and leave, turn around and run, but I fought it back down, sipping my wine until calm returned. Reaching out, I gently touched the figure on the paper, tracing its high, reptilian cheekbones, then I turned back to the man at my side, extended my hand tentatively, and gently touched the side of his face, meeting his questioning gaze.

We didn't leave the room for the rest of the night, alternately reading, and talking, and fucking. I fucked him until I was raw, and started to hurt, then kept going. It was like a thing I felt I had to burn through, to get to the other side. Fucking. The mechanical act of sex, all legs and hair and limbs splayed all over the wrong places in improbable angles. A sudden glimpse of his face framed between my legs, his long, dark blond hair in a great fan across my stomach as he lapped at my clit. Fucking Thom Yorke, his slender body underneath me, or above me, his snakelike hips, thrashing, grinding between my thighs, twisting back and forth like a dynamo as his thighs pumped against me.

I wanted to exhaust him, to wear him out, maybe even to break him, but he gritted his teeth and carried on. We were both in pain, too tired to even come, but neither of us wanted to stop. My body was completely spent, racked from orgasm over and over again, my cunt feeling like a great open wound, his groin rubbed red from the friction of my skin against his, his shaft disappearing up to the hilt inside me then reappearing as his hips bucked away from me. I fucked him until it no longer felt good, until it no longer felt like anything, until I felt like I was watching someone else's body penetrated by him, again and again.

I clutched him close as he slumped back against me, pressing his lips against my sweaty face. "I don't think I can come again, there's nothing left."

"Just give me a moment," I murmured, pushing his dripping hair out of my face, closing my eyes just for a moment, I promised myself, as I fell asleep with him still inside me.

 

I woke, in the morning, reeling, my head spinning from too much wine and not enough dinner, and my legs aching, but when I felt him moving against me, spooning me, my back to him, I could not refuse. I passed him the last of the condoms from the night stand and let him push inside me before I'd even properly woken up. My body was too bruised to orgasm, but his hands coaxed one final shudder from me anyway. Finally, he slumped back against me, and though I could hardly believe that he had anything left, the condom was full as he slowly, slightly painfully, withdrew.

"There's no fool like an old fool," he sighed quietly, kissing my shoulder. "Do you want to shower first, or should I?"

"You go ahead." I just prayed he would leave me some hot water, as I knew the club's temperamental heating system and figured he needed to get clean before he got home, while I could wait until I got back to my flat. He showered and dressed, then I tried to hose myself off a bit, but put my dirty clothes back on.

As I dressed, he dug in his backpack and pulled out an old-fashioned paper diary. "When will I see you again?" he asked, flicking through to the next weekend.

"I don't know..." I hedged, looking for my iPhone and bringing up the calendar. I didn't actually have much on until I started my new job, but there was no way I was going to tell him that. "This weekend is bad, but the weekend after that might be alright..." I could not believe we were really doing this, calmly scheduling our affair as if we were booking a tennis match.

"Weekends are absolutely out. They're always bad. Family time." I cringed as he flipped back and forth between pages. "How about next Tuesday, I can do any time after lunchtime."

"Tuesday is fine, but you can't stay over, I've got a meeting at my new office on Wednesday afternoon and I need to be reasonably rested."

He smirked. "Are you saying you don't get any rest when I'm around?"

"You know I don't."

"We could make it Monday instead. Is that better?" I nodded. "Why don't you come out and see me? It would be easier than trying to make another excuse to come into London so soon."

"I'm not coming to your house." That was too much, even for me, the house where his children slept? I couldn't do it.

"I didn't want you to. Come out and meet me in the countryside. We can go for a walk. I'll show you my actual favourite tree," he offered.

"Sounds lovely. But how am I going to get out there? I don't drive."

"Take the train. You can change at Reading for the local line and get off right at Little Whitchurch station, it's just over half a mile from the station to the woods. Come on, don't you get a craving for fresh air after the smoke of the city?"

I had to admit, I was tempted. Besides, it was time we did something together other than sit around a room, talking about art and fucking. I was going to get bored of that fairly quickly. "Where do I go from?"

"Paddington?"

"Well. OK, yeah, I'll text you when I get on the train and tell you when to expect me."

"That's perfect. But not too late, as I don't want to miss the sunlight."

"You expect me... to get out of bed before noon?"

"Come on, it will be good practice for your new office job," he teased. "Right, it's a date then."

I glared at him, looking around the room to see if I'd missed anything. Thom had already collected up all the condoms and wadded them carefully into a plastic bag at the bottom of the trash, but other than that, the room was tidy. "We should go, before they chuck us out."

"Wouldn't do for the lesbian underworld to find a man in your room, I know." He was far too chipper for a man who hadn't had his tea yet.

I handed back the room key to the new woman at the desk, then the two of us slipped out into the early dawn. We bought cups of tea  and sipped them outside a coffee bar in Soho Square, then I put him on a bus to Paddington and made my way down to the tube, wincing slightly at my bruised thighs as I clattered down the steps. What was this strange new world where I was casually having an affair with a married pop star? OK, not married, but... managed non-monogamy? What the fuck, no, he was married as far I was concerned. This was not who I was. This was not my life.

 

I was actually looking forward to a walk in the woods. I rose early, put on sensible boots and a pair of thick jeans, and a long coat with a hood in case it rained, but the weather looked fair and cold as I headed out of my flat. Paddington was one of those train stations I'd always liked, the huge glass tent letting in the sunlight despite years of Victorian era grime. It was where the train from Cardiff came in, my first sight of London as an overexcited teenager, and the residual thrill of adolescent expectations still gave me a lift.

I found my train, estimated my arrival and sent off a text, half expecting him to ring me back, as it seemed his habit, but my phone only dinged with a text in return to say that he would meet me at the station. Sipping my coffee, I watched London slide by in a grey haze outside my window, slowly giving way to green as we got further away. Past Slough with its rows of little brick John Betjeman houses. Past Reading, with its vast office parks, and there were actual expanses of country, farms bordered by polite hedgerows and slightly malevolent patches of woods. The train climbed up the downs at a steady rate, then went through a cutting, then there was my station, a tiny rural stop almost surrounded by trees. There was a single sign, in faded green and white letters, proclaiming "Little Whitchurch for The Royal Whitchurch Woods."

I disembarked from the train, after a couple of hardy rambling types in sturdy shoes and anoraks, and looked up and down the platform. Had Thom forgotten to come and get me? Had something terrible intervened? Was he late? Without London traffic to blame, that seemed unlikely. But the platform was deserted except for an old man in a bowler hat sitting on a bench at the far end of the station. Wait, no, that was not an old man. I walked closer, saw the expensive Japanese jeans, the combat boots and the familiar heather grey scarf tucked up around his neck under his long black coat. He eyed me evenly from under the rim of his hat, his half smile never quite breaking into a grin until I walked right up to him and climbed, kneeling, to straddle him on the bench.

Wordlessly, we kissed. I knocked his hat somewhat sideways, his hair disheveled underneath, but it was such a new feeling, and wonderful, the idea that I could do anything I wanted to this man. Me, who was so afraid of being touched, I had grown to anticipate the moment that I got to touch my lover's face, twine my fingers in his hair and press my thighs up against his. Touching, rather than being touched, it made a difference. He worked his hands inside my coat and rested them gently on my hips, pulling me towards him.

"You make me want to skip the walk and just head straight for the nearest inn for a dirty afternoon," he finally growled when I pulled away.

"No," I insisted, replacing his hat on his head carefully, at exactly the right slightly jaunty angle. "You promised me a yomp in the woods and I insist on having one."

But his hands were on my legs, brushing my thighs. Something caught his attention and his eyes flashed as he leant down. "Are you wearing Wellingtons? How terribly sensible," he observed in a lightly mocking but slightly aroused tone, his eyes flashing with mischief.

"For our walk?" I reminded him, though I was loathe to push his hands off me.

"Alright," He sighed regretfully. "There's a shortcut right at the end of the platform, that's why I was waiting down here. Not just for the privacy." His eyes twitched up towards the CCTV camera, aimed away from us, back towards the station. I climbed off him and waited for him to lead the way, along the platform and onto a winding narrow path that lead up the side of the cutting and into the trees. "It'll be much nicer once we get out of the sight and sound of the railway tracks, I promise."

"I was about to say, these trees aren't that old, are they? Less than a hundred years."

"Well, this bit had to be regrown as a plantation after the train tracks were driven through. As you get deeper into the woods, it's ancient woodland."

"How ancient? Georgian? Civil War? Tudor?"

"Older than that. Old growth, there was woodland here when William the Conquerer commissioned the Domesday Book. The oldest trees probably only date back to the Civil War period - the Kings Oak, the Queens Oak, they've been coppiced so many times they might actually be immortal - but this area is primordial forest that's survived since Roman times, maybe even before. I like to imagine it's been here since the last ice age, I love the sense of temporal vertigo at the age of it." His face lit up as he described his beloved forest. "Careful - watch, there's a patch of brambles."

"This path, it's older than the cutting, isn't it? It's bank and ditch, like a hollow way." It actually quite impressed me, that he both knew - and so clearly loved - this landscape so well. The scrubby old forest, all covered in ivy, it was the kind of place that was easy to dismiss as wasteland, until you looked more closely.

"Well spotted," he beamed, turning to smile at me. "It was a connecting track down from the Ridgeway, you can see how far the ruts have worn down from where the trees roots are exposed - look. Layers upon layers, how far back the time goes. Ancient, primordial, it brings out something atavistic in me.."

"Must be astonishingly beautiful in spring," I whistled, looking out into cathedrals of silent, leafless beeches, only the oaks behind them shedding the last of their leaves with a faint rustling.

"Can't move for bluebells. Miles and miles of them. And wild garlic - we come and pick it for soups in the spring. Good foraging - and mushrooms, too, though my missus doesn't let me eat what I find any more."

"I'm not surprised, you have to be a real expert to tell edible from poisonous ones."

He grumbled and shrugged, stuffing his hands into his pockets, then lead off down another track, striding purposefully as if he knew where he was going.

"Hang on," I called after him.

"What?"

"I want to take a picture." He smiled, leaning against an upright trunk as I turned around and snapped the vista of the valley and the railway line beneath us. Then I turned around and caught him in my viewfinder. "You suddenly make sense, in this setting. You look like you grew there, some little old man who lives among the trees."

"An Elf - or an Ent. This is all Tolkien country around here. You can completely understand why he wrote the stories he did, invented the characters and the settings that he did, when you see the places he used to visit. There's a bank of earth, much further along, where some joker has put in a big, round door, pretending like it's a hobbit hole. The Americans come from miles around to see it."

"I don't think he was writing entirely from scratch, though, was he? There are tons of old English and Celtic folk tales woven through his writing. I don't think that British legend has been quite as thoroughly lost as people reckon," I mused. "Even in England, if you go to places like Glastonbury or Cornwall..."

"You old hippie," Thom laughed, as if his hair wasn't curling down the edge of his collar. "Cornish mythology is all Irish and Welsh tales anyway, isn't it?"

"Well, what about Arthur?"

"King Arthur wasn't Cornish..." Thom protested.

"He was, born in Tintagel. Definitely West Country. But the borders were different back then, weren't they? Cornwall used to stretch all the way to the River Exe until the Saxons pushed them back."

"Our lot."

" _Your_ lot."

"What do you mean, my lot? What are Ffordds, anyway?"

"My family? Welsh."

"Is that why you have so many extraneous consonants? I thought it was an affectation, all those Fs and Ds."

"Fuck off, look who's talking, Ttttthhhhom," I tossed back, articulating the silent H of his name into a sibilant lisp. "Ye Olde Thom Yorkie, no less."

"Don't blame me, blame my parents." A lop-sided little boy grin.

"Well, blame the good burghers of Pen-y-Ffordd for my extra letters, then. And it's pronounced Forth, like the Firth of Forth, not Ford, like the bloody car."

He laughed aloud, moving closer to me to tuck a strand of unruly black hair back behind my ear. It had taken some time, but I was learning not to wince when he came near me. "Do you speak Welsh, Ffffffffion?"

"Fffffffuck no," I giggled, reaching out for his face, pulling it towards me to kiss him. "Learned it at school, but I can't remember a word except... wait. Croeso, For some reason, I remember that."

"What's that mean."

I laughed softly, feeling him rub his nose against mine. "Welcome."

He kissed me back, deep, probing, his eyelids fluttering closed, then pulled away. "Come on, let's get in the deep woods, before anyone else comes along the station path." Taking me by the hand, he pulled me along the path. We walked up a slight incline, then hit the top of the ridge. There was a patch of tall beeches at the top of the hill, with a rope swing that swayed perilously out over the edge into nothingness, surrounded on all sides by the endless trees. The forest seemed to go on forever, red and gold and brown leaves interwoven with bare branches that tangled together like woven fingers as if the whole wood was holding hands. "Down this way," he directed, starting to climb over a low stone barrier to get down the slope, but I held back.

"Hang on, just give me a minute, I need to draw this..." I sighed, pulling out my sketchbook and settling down on the edge of the tumbled pile of stones.

Thom smiled resignedly, rolled his eyes and reached for the rope. Hanging on it like a monkey, he swung out into the void as I did my best to sketch out the outline of trees and ditch and stone pile and the hosts upon hosts of tall, gaunt oaks, their branches crooked against the sky like grasping fingers. I pulled out my iPhone and snapped a picture of him swinging, thinking that was how I would remember him best, clinging to a rope, launching himself into the void, mouth open, teeth bared, one eye open with wonder, the other half closed in fear, suspended above a world of beauty and terror.

But he was impatient to be on, I could feel it, as he gave up on his swinging, came back to solid ground with a crash and a scuffle, picking himself up and dusting himself off, a small insubstantial man surrounded by giant trees. He turned around to observe me, kicking at stones and swishing his way through drifts of fallen leaves.

"That is the best sound in the world," I told him, sketching furiously.

"It is, isn't it?" he looked up, his eyes shining. I should really sample it, take it in and use it as a backing track, the steady swish of an even walking pace through dry leaves. But it'd be a bit... I dunno, Kate Bush, wouldn't it?"

"Absolutely nothing wrong with that." Another few pencil marks to suggest leaf drifts and I was done. I stood up to take a reference photo then moved to follow him, plunging into seas of dead leaves as we made our way down the slope, scaring off a pair of magpies with our noise. The path forked off in one direction, but he gestured to a narrow deer track, plunging even deeper into the heart of the woods. Apart from the steady swish, swish, swish of our feet through leaves, there was no sound but the occasional gust of wind sweeping up over the ridge, rattling the limbs of the trees against one another like a flock of skeletal crows. The woods were so dense now that we had to dip our heads to get under low branches, as Thom held brambles out of my way. The trees were much older here, the trunks immense and ringed with ivy, the ivy's own roots as thick as some of the younger trees we'd seen before.

"We're nearly there, I promise," said Thom as we passed a huge mass of holly, its red berries already sprouting amidst its dark foliage. We crossed a muddy stream then crawled up the opposite bank, through a wall of willows into a slight clearing. "There she is. My actual favourite tree."

With a reverent hush, I walked up to the massive oak. It seemed impossible that something could be that old, and that maimed, and still be alive, but the tufts of brightly coloured leaves clinging to the crown seemed to testify to its vitality. The tree had clearly already been vast, even before the lightning strike or whatever act of god had cloven it in two, one half erect, the other half leaning down along the ground at an impossible angle before springing up again in an unlikely shoot. 

"They thought it had died, in the great hurricane of 1987," Thom observed, as if reading my thoughts. "But they're astonishingly resilient, these old pollarded trees. Cut them down, and they spring back even stronger. Heart of Oak and all that."

I walked around it, squinting, trying to work out the best angle to draw it from, as Thom walked up to it and hopped up onto an outstanding root like the buttress of a great cathedral.

"No, come here - there's something even better I want to show you, before you sit down and start drawing again," he promised. I walked over to him, and he pulled me up next to him, before stepping down into the breach of the tree, reaching up his hand to steady me as I followed him into the huge, round room inside. "Oh good, we're alone." 

I looked up, into the dizzying heights of the hollow trunk, to the patch of sky high above, which lit the dim interior, then looked back to the crack we had just climbed through.

He reached for me, grabbing me by the waist and I, shocked at the unexpected touch, pushed him off. "Come on, Fi, we're alone now, it's safe," he insisted, and grabbed at me again. Without thinking, I pushed him away, shoving him hard, back against the wood. And then I caught myself, and stopped before I accidentally hurt him.

"I'm sorry, you know you shouldn't grab at me."

But he was breathing hard, his face flushed. "No. Don't apologise. I love it when you just throw me around like a piece of meat. It really... you have no idea how much it turns me on."

I moved back towards him, placing my hands on his shoulders and pushing him roughly up against the wall again. I could almost feel his excitement through his skin as I pushed my face up against him and kissed him roughly, pushing myself between his legs. He whimpered slightly and rolled his head back, showing me the soft white underside of his neck, as if daring me to nibble at him, then moaned softly as my teeth slid down. I kissed his neck, ran my teeth along the hard line of his jawbone, then slipped my lips around the lobe of his ear. He shuddered as my tongue pressed inside and went completely limp.

Slipping down, I lowered myself to my knees, relieved by the softness of the bed of dried leaves, and pulled open his coat to get at his belt. He was hard already, I could feel it through his pants as I got his jeans open and reached for his cock, pulling it out into the dim light to stare at him before wrapping my lips around him like some succulent tender shoot, a small white mushroom that blossomed and grew until he filled my mouth.

"Wait, wait, no, no, no," he panted, clawing at my hair to pull me away from him.

"What, don't you like it?" I asked, leaning my head back to look up at him.

"No, it's not that I don't like it, it's just... don't do that."

"Why not?"

"It's sordid, I can't stand the idea of coming in your mouth. I don't want to make you taste that. Nasty. Icky. You don't have to do that for me."

I looked up at him curiously, trying to read the combination of desire and fear across his features. "I want to. I like it. I like the way you taste, I like the way you feel."

"But you get nothing out of it."

"How do you know?" I replaced my mouth, running my tongue along the underside of his head as his breath grew short. I moved forward, taking the whole length of his cock in my mouth and he whimpered again, tangling his fingers in my hair, as if unable to decide whether to pull me closer or push me further away. Sucking harder, I pulled his entire length into the back of my throat, pushing my hands around the back of his jeans to grab at his skinny arse, pulling him closer to me.

"Fiona, no!" He surprised me with the force of his reaction, grabbing my shoulders and pushing me off him before pulling me down to the floor with him, scrabbling at the zipper of my jeans as he put his mouth over mine, almost biting me with the force of his kisses. Before I could realise what he was doing, he had pulled my jeans free, one leg on, one leg off, and thrust his hand between my legs, pushing my lips open with his fingers as he tried to twist me around. Suddenly I understood what he was trying to do, and reached for his trousers, pulling them down as he struggled to get a grip on me. And then he was inside me, and we were kissing, or biting, as I pushed myself up against him, just urgently coupling, squeezing him as tightly as I could between my thighs until he cried out. "You're hurting me!"

"I'm sorry..." My whole vagina seemed to be constricting itself around him, pulsing with pleasure as I ground up against him.

"Don't stop!" He grit his teeth and plunged on, his hands on my breasts, urgently pumping until he abruptly broke off, his face contorting into that twisted grimace of ecstasy I was starting to know so well. "Oh, shit," he exclaimed as he slumped back against the floor, his face falling into a patch of sunlight, his hat rolling off into the gloom, leaving his hair all golden and light brown with reddish highlights like camouflage against the autumn leaves. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"It's fine," I told him, flopping down on top of him, stroking his face gently and running my fingers through his tangled hair. His face in the dappled sunlight seemed suddenly much older, wiser, than I was used to seeing him, in enclosed spaces under artificial light. With my fingertips, I traced the tiny lattice of lines around his eyes, the streak of white in his beard. It was like he'd stopped being the rock star when we entered the woods - it was the balding, slightly paunchy middle aged father of two who lay before me. And yet his face was so placid, his body language open, relaxed, the spring of tension that usually ran down his spine completely uncoiled. The corners of his mouth twitched up in an unencumbered smile as a sunbeam caught his eyes, lighting up filaments of silvery grey in his dark blue irises.

"No, I'm sorry," he confessed, breaking the spell. "I broke the rules. No condom."

"Shit." In my haste, I hadn't even thought to ask. "We can stop at a chemist's, I can get the morning after pill, it'll be fine."

He paused, a fearful expression coming across his face. "Have you... been tested?"

I laughed dryly. "Thom, I haven't had sex with anyone except you in five years. I should be asking you that question, not the other way around."

Relief and embarrassment mingled on his face. "I'm clear." I laughed and kissed him, then brushed his hair out of his face, admiring the way it mingled with the colours of the leaves and trying not to notice the long inverted triangles of pale, freckled skin showing through at his receding temples. "I know, I know, it's getting stupidly long, I need a haircut."

"I was just thinking how nice it looked."

"You think?" His face was as eager for praise as a little boy.

"It makes you look softer, somehow. Younger, perhaps."

"It's funny, I hated still looking like a schoolboy when I was 25. But if girls like me for still looking like a schoolboy when I'm 40..." He smiled, pleasure glinting in his eyes. "I'll leave it then, if you like it."

I was about to protest that perhaps he should ask his wife, but changed my mind. This moment was perfect, I didn't want to spoil it. Bending down, I kissed him gently, first on his perfect right eyelid, then his left, then the slightly crooked tip of his nose, and then on his wide, bruised-looking lips.

When I pulled away, he parted his mouth slightly, and looked as he were about to say something, but then changed his mind and shook his head. "You wanted to draw this tree, and I molested you instead. We should get up and go outside before the light goes."

We stayed for another few hours, alternately kissing then sitting opposite one another, drawing the forest around us, before slowly making our way back through the woods before the sun set and the light went. The colours in the sky were so perfect, so exquisite, I wanted to just bottle the day to remember it, the most complete happiness and contentment, the woods, the rustle of dry leaves, and my hedgehog boy. He checked the train times for me, then we sat in his car, the radio on, Dvorak playing quietly in the background as we sat, looking at the woods, not holding hands, but still touching, my hand on his shoulder, his hand on my thigh, until the train came, and I ran for it, snatching one last stolen kiss before making my slow way back to London.

Curled up in a window seat on the train, I hugged my stomach, and for a solitary hour, I wondered. What would that other world look like, where I got pregnant with his baby, where I bore his child, where he kept me, and another whole family in South London, a secret from his wife. What would our child look like? Would it have thin his blond hair, or my thick black tresses? His blue eyes or my dark ones?

But no. I took a connecting train to Clapham and went to the all night chemists and asked for the Morning After Pill and my own box of condoms to live at the bottom of my handbag. It was not a world that I could ever see living in. I grabbed the lid of that particular fantasy and slammed Pandora's box shut before I could allow myself to get wistful.


	9. Ballet

First day of a new job. It was always nerve-wracking, but I dressed myself up in my best power suit and even dragged out a pair of heels and made my way down to Soho to meet my new team at TheCultureDesk. Well, team mate. The big boss who had hired me breezed in, introduced me around, then left me to the tech guy to talk me through the website.

James, my tech guy, was tall, slim, and good looking in a generic blond public school way, but the way he looked me over, as I entered the room we were supposed to share on the days I was in the office, made me distinctly uncomfortable.

"What?" I demanded as I sat down opposite him, keeping my gaze direct enough to intimidate any man.

"No, nothing," he backed down, spreading his hands in a conciliatory tone.

"Look, if we are going to work together effectively, you had better learn not to lie to me. What is it?"

"Alright, but you're not going to like it." He crossed his legs, keeping his gaze even with mine. Oh god, tech boys and their domination games, could I really deal with this kind of alpha male competition for the next three months? Grit your teeth and think of the paycheck, Fiona. This was where he was going to say it, lay out the rules for interaction, remind me how useless women were at tech and put me back in my place. Get on with it, then. But what came out of his mouth surprised me completely. "Honey, that suit, with those shoes? Just... no." My face slowly broke into a grin as I struggled to contain my laughter. "It's a nice suit, it's clearly well made and wears well, but the cut of your jacket is years out of date. Us nerds in the back room, we might not care, but you will be dealing with the client-facing side of this industry, they will notice, and they will scent blood."

Shaking my head, I bent down and took off the incredibly uncomfortable high heeled pumps and placed them on the desk between us.

"I bet a fiver you have a pair of sensible shoes stuffed at the bottom of that enormous elephant bag, so girl, you just put them on right now. When it's just you and me here, you wear whatever makes you comfortable. And I will give you the name and number of my tailor to get that suit updated."

"Alright," I conceded. "You've got me. I'm hopeless at fashion. But you. You're as big a girl's blouse as I'm an unfashionable nerd. Confess. You are a designer, not a web developer, aren't you?"

He smiled and hand-waved his way out of it. "Guilty as charged. Central St Martin's graduate. I taught myself Dreamweaver after the dot com bubble burst decimated our IT Department because no one else was going to do a half decent job."

I looked him up and down, trying to decide if he was actually gay or just metrosexual, but I'd already made up my mind to like him. "Well, I'm Goldsmiths so I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. I actually had to hand code back in the dark ages, so don't worry about me dissing your style sheets. Just tell me what tags I need to use and I'll stick to house style."

"If you can get the bloody freelancers to just submit in plain text and not fuck everything up in weird versions of Word for Mac, I will be your best friend, carry your books to school forever. Coffee or tea?"

"French press, filter or instant? Because unless it's the former, tea, please."

"French press, of course! Do you expect anything less? Come on, I'll show you the kitchen and my secret supply of roast beans."

We bantered back and forth over the brewing coffee, like two animals trying to get a sniff of whether the other was friend or foe. "Are you North or South of the river?"

"South. Streatham."

A wrinkled nose. "Ooh. I'm so sorry. I'm in Balham. Do you live alone, or with housemates? Partner?"

"I live alone. You?"

"Two housemates, two cats. Milk and sugar?"

"Yes, both, one lump, please."

"Boyfriend?" The hint of a smile. "Or girlfriend?"

"It's complicated." I wasn't quite ready to call Thom my boyfriend, not yet, not to a stranger.

"Oh, one of those."

"You? Boyfriend? Girlfriend?" I tossed back as I sipped my coffee.

"None of the above. Yet." Another sly smile. We made our way back to our office. "Do you mind if I put some music on? Usually, I'll listen on headphones if I'm coding, but it'd be nice to put something on."

This was clearly another test. "What have you got? I'm a bit of a music snob." He raised an eyebrow. "When it comes to bubblegum, I'm very picky about my pop."

"Oh, good. The last editor listened to dreadful indie music. If I never have to hear Fleet Foxes or Vampire Weekend ever again, it will be too soon." He pronounced the names with such disdain I nearly laughed aloud. "Alright. Let's see. Whitney or Mariah?"

"Mary J Blige," I retorted.

"Ooh, good answer - but not on this iTunes. I'll bring some in from home, next week, though."

Two could play this game. "Solo career only - Justin... or Robbie?"

He turned back to me with that sly grin again. "Oh, please. What boy can resist the charm of one of those American Southern gentlemen? Justin, in a heartbeat."

I smiled broadly. "I always had a soft spot for Robbie. But, OK... current events. Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga?"

A moment of irritation flickered across his face. "You know, I don't actually dislike Lady Gaga's music, but she irritates me. She seems so determined to make herself a 'Gay Icon'..." He actually used air quotes. "...but I'm sorry, you don't appoint yourself to that post, you get elected to that post."

"Um, not to burst your bubble, but some might say she elected herself to that role by coming out as a bisexual. You might get to decide on her icon status, but only she gets to define her gay status."

A slightly petulant expression, then a shrug. "Well, alright, I will bow to your more... intimate knowledge of La Gaga. But it still doesn't answer the question of what we're going to listen to." My phone suddenly went in my pocket, cutting off the question. "You better get that, it sounds insistent."

I turned away to check the text - I already knew who it was before I opened it, as I'd given him his own ringtone and message alert, but it still made me feel a bit red in the face to see Thom's name in my inbox. 'good luck today, knock em dead. hope they think u r as amazing as i do. x'

"I would guess that's the complication?" James wondered aloud, spotting my flushing face.

"The Complication. Yes." I decided to throw him a bone, or maybe I just wanted to boast. This was such an odd feeling for me. "His name is Thom."

"Thomas?" He put his hand to his throat in a slightly embarrassed gesture. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry - I totally thought you were a lesbian, I've been trying to work out how to politely ask if you wanted to get lunch at First Out for the past half hour."

"Actually, it's short for Thomasina." The expression on his face made me burst out laughing. "No, I'm joking. What on earth made you think that?"

He hand-waved, slightly flustered. "I don't know. The suit. The hairstyle, the earrings, the shoes - this is bad, usually my gaydar is quite good."

"No, it's fine," I assured him, trying to get over my giggles. "It's just funny you think I look like a lesbian." A pause. "My earrings? What's wrong with my earrings?"

"They're a bit earth mother."

I screwed up a post-it note and threw it at him. "You can diss my shoes but if you diss my earrings we will have words."

"Alright, alright. I'll put on Missy Elliott and show you the site redesign."

"If you have Miss E... So Addictive on your iTunes, then I will carry your books home from school for the rest of time."

 

It felt like I'd finally fallen on my feet. The routine became comforting. I spent two days a week in the office, and the rest of the time in my pyjamas, my laptop on the end of the bed, keeping an eye on my inbox as I worked on my drawings. Every other week, Thom would take the train into London and meet me for supper, then spent the night at my club. The other snatched moments, I'd take the train out to Whitchurch, walking and sketching and talking, though as the weather turned cold, we had to drive his car to an abandoned country lane for a rough and tumble screw in the back seat. The schedule suited me. He was reliable, and companionable, he was supportive when I needed it, and backed off when I didn't, though he had to be taught not to call me when I was at work. He learned my schedule, though once or twice he turned up unannounced at my house. I tried to discourage this, but when he appeared, leaning insouciantly on my doorbell and looking up at me with that half-defiant, half-seductive gaze, I could never resist.

"You shouldn't disturb me when I'm working," I'd insist, glaring at him, all businesslike over the top of my reading glasses.

"You work too hard, Fi. All work and no play makes Fi a dull girl," he'd tease, learning forward and pretending to kiss me on the cheek, then turning his head just at the last minute to run his tongue insolently along the underside of my earlobe. And I would simply melt, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him into my flat before the neighbours could see.

My life was going well. Though maybe I couldn't hide the fear that it was, perhaps going too well.

After about two months at my new job, chasing freelancers, editing authors' rants into thought-provoking articles, filling in the gaps myself with a few thousand words a week of op/ed, and working with James to get a good-looking and functional site, the executive who had hired me and then ignored me for weeks actually started to drop hints that they might want to extend my contract beyond Christmas. Suddenly people were asking how my schedule was shaping up for the new year. I might be available, for the right package, I told the big boss calmly, as James quietly air-punched behind his back.

"They'd be a fool not to take you on long-term," he told me, after work, over cocktails at our favourite after work bar. "The page impressions have gone steadily up since you got here, and they've lifted right across our section of the site, so it's not just the occasional trollumnist you get in to stir up controversy. Though that definitely has its high points."

"Yeah, but that's assuming that I want a permanent position."

"Do you not?" James looked surprised.

My phone dinged, the special tone that let me know it was a text from Thom, but I tried not to twitch immediately to answer it.

"Or do you have some fantasy that your Complication will make up his mind and sweep you off your feet to whatever home county he owns a massive pile in?"

I shook my head. "What on earth makes you think I want that, either?"

"The way your face lights up every time that rain drop sound comes on your iPhone."

"It does not," I insisted, finally giving in and looking at the message.

'can't make tomorrow, something unexpected has come up. can we reschedule for thursday? at your club.'

'yes, fine,' I texted back before turning to James again. "I don't want any more than I've already got. Don't project your problems onto me because Ballet Boy is giving you the runaround."

"Oh god, don't even remind me. I don't know what to do. I've never had it this bad, but oh my god, the muscles in his legs, they're like... they are like the cables in a suspension bridge. All I have to do is see them, and I just melt. I can make up my mind to be firm about my boundaries with him, and I see those legs, and they just destroy my resistance. I'm jelly in his hands." Bending over, he slumped his forehead dramatically to the bar.

I laughed and patted him gently on the shoulders. "You should keep things casual, like me and The Complication. It's just so much easier on the constitution."

"Oh god, does The Complication have pectoral muscles like sculpted slabs of ebony?" James moaned into his Vodka Tonic.

I laughed at the very idea, thinking of Thom's pale, buttery soft and freckled chest. "No, he doesn't, and considering your reaction, I'm quite relieved."

"He's dancing in the Nutcracker Suite tomorrow, and of course he's given me free tickets - come and bring a friend, he says, as if he's just testing me, so of course if I turn up on my numpty, I will look like the most pathetic loser chasing after him, but if I don't go, then there is zero chance of getting my hands on the ebony slabs..."

My ears pricked up. "That, actually, I can help you with."

He opened one eye and looked at me. "You already told me you'll be off with The Complication tomorrow. So unless The Complication has a very good looking brother, well... can you find me a date?"

"Better than that. The Complication just rescheduled. I can be your beard, honey. And I can get a look at Ballet Boy's sculptural buttocks myself."

Suddenly James snapped back to life. "You can? Oh my god, Fi, you're a life saver. It's a matinee performance, but it will still be pretty formal - it's Covent Garden after all. Do you have a suitable frock?"

"I will find something. But I do this on one condition - you have to promise not to laugh at whatever I wear."

"Look. Use the iPhone, it's what it's for. Take a picture of whatever you are going to wear half an hour before you leave the house, and I'll tell you what to change." I thumped him, but he laughed and finished his cocktail. "Come on, you are getting a free box at the Royal Ballet, so don't be too rough."

 

And so I ended up, dressed to the nines in a royal blue silk dress embroidered with tiny gold crosses, with thick black tights and three inches of stacked heels, perched on a stool at the Royal Covent Garden Opera house, next to James, immaculate in a tailored suit, waiting for a ballet dancer to emerge from the wings. James was so nervous he kept ordering double vodkas for both of us - he could clearly handle his drink, but I already felt my head swimming.

Finally, the ballet dancer made an appearance, and even I had to admit he was beautiful, tall, lithe, with the face of an ancient Egyptian king. I'd never seen James so rattled as the young man made his way, weaving gracefully through the crowd towards us. "Peter," he gushed as the young god reached us. "This is my colleague, Fiona."

"Thank you so much for the tickets," I purred. "I've not been here since I was a child."

"For such a beautiful lady, it is my pleasure," Peter announced in such a deep and sonorous voice that even I felt my knees go a bit wobbly, then took my hand and brushed his lips across them like a gentleman. "Do you two have drinks? Shall I get another round?"

"Should you be drinking before a performance?"

"Don't worry, I'll have spring water. But you are my guests, I insist."

"Thank you, that's very kind." As he walked back to the bar, I caught James' eye. "Oh my god. You were not exaggerating in the slightest. He is the most seriously beautiful man I think I've ever seen."

"I know, right?" The normally confident and laid-back James was as unsettled as a schoolboy.

Peter returned a few minutes later, bearing a tray with a bottle of spring water and two very large and very strong smelling double vodka tonics. "We're in luck tonight. My friend is on the bar. I've had a word - you have a free tab."

"Wow," I squeaked, tasting my drink, which was even stronger than the last one. The smile that Peter gave James was unmistakable. He was definitely interested, and I suddenly felt my matchmaking instincts kick in to get the two of them together, no matter how. "So which dances are you in, Peter, tell us when we should watch out for you?"

"Oh, you will see him," James insisted. "When he's onstage, you won't be able to look anywhere else."

Peter rolled his eyes and looked at me. "This one, he is such a playboy, always flatter, flatter, flatter, I can never take him seriously."

"Are we talking about the same man? James? Flatter? He's even caustic to his own mother."

Peter frowned. "I do not like a man to be disrespectful to his mother. It is not seemly. You can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats his family."

"Don't worry, it's only a figure of speech," I assured Peter. "I've never met his family. I was just going by how he pesters me about my clothes."

"Your clothes are beautiful," Peter told me. "The lead ballerina could not be dressed more elegantly."

I turned to smile at James, and give him a wink of encouragement, but a face in the growing crowd suddenly caught my attention. No. It was a trick of the light and too much vodka. It could not be. I saw hedgehog dirty blond hair everywhere I went, it was just a tick. The crowd parted again and I saw the family again, not distinctly, from a distance, obscured by people. A man with messy dark blond hair and wide shoulders, a woman beside him, and two small blond children between them. I tried to pay attention to Peter and James, sparring for my attention, but I couldn't take my eyes off the man in the distance. The way he stood, the way he carried himself, those wide shoulders, slim hips and short legs, everything about him seemed so familiar. Then he turned around, distracted by a child, and I suddenly got a clear look at his face. He didn't see me, his ptosis must have blocked too much of his peripheral vision, but the bottom dropped out of my stomach as I recognised that unmistakable face.

Think. Quick, I told myself as I struggled with the urge to stare and the urge to run away. But Peter said something, and I seized on it. "Oh, Peter - is there any way you could take us backstage? I have always wondered what it's like... the costumes, the sequins, the glamour. It must be so exciting."

James shot me an odd expression, clearly wondering why I was suddenly expressing an interest in girly clothes and glitter, but Peter beamed, flattered. "I would be delighted to. Let me show you my world..." Standing up, he gestured for us to follow him as he moved towards the backstage door, pulling me away from Thom and his perfect family. "These are my friends, they are with me," Peter told the security guard, and we breezed through into the dark netherworld behind the stage. I tried to pay attention as Peter showed us stage sets, lights, rooms full of shining costumes, the smell of sweat and makeup, but all I could see was the backs of two small blond heads floating in my mind. James, however, stepped into the gap, chatting amiably and charmingly with Peter as we made the circle of the dressing rooms.

His children. Of course I'd known about them in the abstract, I'd known about them from the start. But the idea of children in the abstract, and two small people standing on either side of him, these were two very different things to contemplate. How could I reconcile them, the lover who fucked me senseless in a rented room in Soho, and the loving father who had turned so attentively to his daughter?

James and Peter, however, barely noticed me, flirting over his dressing table as James flattered his crush ceaselessly. Pulling off the loose sweats he had been wearing, Peter stripped to his tights and started doing his stretches, clearly enjoying the appreciative gaze of James. But instead of trying to push them together, I sat, moonstruck, staring at my reflection in the mirror, that pale girl with the shapeless mop of black hair and eyes like two dark pools of nothing.

"Oh, we are ignoring our poor princess," Peter laughed, pulling me back to the present. "Let me find her a powder puff." Out of nowhere, he seemed to produce some glitter and some rhinestones and stuck them onto my cheeks. "Now you look like one of the dancing snowflakes."

"Thank you," I managed to stutter as he even found me a tiara and stuck it into my hair, but I felt more like Cinderella in sackcloth than a princess.

"What about me? Do I get any snowflakes?" James teased, offering his own cheek. Peter bit his lip naughtily, then found a smear of glitter and some rhinestones to dust James' cheeks. They didn't need my help, they were getting on just fine on their own. But what about me, with my lover and his whole family only fifty yards away, back in the theatre?

"Ah! There is the bell. You must go to your seats now. I'll show you the back way - out that corridor, and up the stairs, and that will take you to the mezzanine. You are in the third row of boxes, I believe. It'll say on your tickets, at least."

"Thank you so much," I told Peter, bending over to kiss him on the cheek, and leaving a smear of glitter.

"I'll see you after the show?" James asked hopefully.

"Or maybe even at intermission," Peter winked. "Now go."

"Break a leg," I told him, and squeezed his arm, even as I felt my stomach doing flips. At least we were in a box, and fairly protected from the rest of the audience. Please let Thom and his family be somewhere far off, where I didn't have to see them. James loped through the backstage area, following Peter's instructions more or less approximately, though he stopped to liberate a bottle of champagne from a case sitting awaiting the aftershow celebration. "James, put that back."

"No way, they'll never miss it," he giggled, stuffing it under his jacket.

We found the stairs, and then the mezzanine, and located our box. Our seats, I had to admit, were absolutely stunning, with a perfect view of the stage and probably even a glimpse of the dancers waiting in the wings, once the curtains drew back. As to the audience, I could see only the front row, already filled with dowagers and trustees, and the box directly opposite us, which mercifully appeared to be empty. I could relax, and try to enjoy the ballet, especially as James had discreetly popped the cork on the champagne and was offering it to me to swill, directly out of the bottle. Oh, what the hell. I needed to be fortified, because I didn't want to deal with this right now. I glugged away, feeling the bubbles hit my stomach on top of the three or four glasses of vodka.

And then the door on the opposite box opened. I saw the four figures, two adults and two children, silhouetted in the door, then they stepped into the light. No. This could not be happening. This had to be a bad dream. Thom herded his children into the box, guiding his little boy next to the child's mother before pulling his daughter into the seat next to his own, settling her down and making sure she was happy before seating himself, pointing out the instruments in the orchestral pit to them both as his wife pulled out a pair of opera glasses and held them up to her face, scanning the crowd. I couldn't bear to watch, and yet I couldn't look away. How many times had he pressed his face between my legs, and now that face hovered inches away from his children as he acted out first a trombone and then a violin.

Don't look up, I silently begged him, even as I stared. Just don't look up. And then, once he was convinced that his children were quietly settled, he looked at his watch, dug in his pocket for his phone, frowned at it, looked as if he were about to send a text message, then changed his mind, switched it off and thrust it back into his coat pocket. His eyes slid disinterestedly across the dowagers in the front row, then up across the boxes, met mine, and stopped.

Time stood still. The low drone of tuning up instruments seemed to completely disappear.

At first, shock crossed his face, mingled with disbelief, then the briefest of radiant smiles as recognition dawned, then slowly, utter horror. For a terrible moment, it looked as if he might wave, but then got hold of himself. I could not look away, but his eyes flickered, I saw the movement, as he glanced, first at his daughter, then at his son, then across to his wife. I saw him do it, and he saw me see the gesture. At that moment, I wanted to die. Seeing the pain and confusion on his face was even worse than the swirling, sinking feeling in my own stomach.

And then I suddenly became aware that James was shaking me. "Come on, Fi, champers! You've got to keep your end of the deal up. What are you staring at?" Snapping out of it, I grabbed at the bottle and swigged from it again, swallowing more than I could keep in my mouth, nearly choking myself in the process, but I forced myself to swallow it down. "Who is that man in the balcony opposite? He looks really familiar. Is he an actor or something? I know I've seen him before."

"That's..." My voice couldn't even say his name.

"He was in that program, that period drama set in the 70s? No, I've got it, he's in that band - that tedious indie band that wins all the awards. Come on, Fi, you're better at pop stars than I am... What's his name? John or Rob or Tom something. Something Northern? Hull? Leeds?"

Thom was glaring at James now, and lord knows what he was thinking, seeing him whispering in my ear in such an intimate manner. "That's... That's The Complication."

"Oh. My. God." James gawped like a dying fish, staring at Thom, glancing across at the perfect family, then back to Thom, who looked just about ready to explode with jealousy. "I knew it was complicated, but I did not know that it was a wife and two children complicated. Fiona, are you mad?"

"Yes. Yes, I am." I took the champagne bottle back from him and upended it.

It was the most miserable hour and a half of my life. I sat there, like a trapped rabbit, as the curtain rose and the music started. The family on the stage seemed like a horrible parody of the happy family sat across the theatre from me. I could watch neither one nor the other, I just wanted to sink through the floor and die. The music didn't even take me away, nor the magic trick as the Christmas tree rose up through the floor and the rats invaded the stage. The theatre was completely dark, I couldn't even see the people in the box across the way, but I felt them like a knife in my stomach.

James was lost to me, watching the story unfolding onstage, entranced by the tall, dark dancer playing the Rat King, striding majestically across the floor, effortlessly graceful and courageous, daring the audience to root for the bad guys. But for all Peter's skill as a dancer and an actor, the drama on the stage could not pull me away from the drama across the hall.

We fled at intermission. James tried to get backstage, but the security guard refused to recognise us, so James parked me in the darkest corner of the stairs and went off to fetch us another two double vodkas. Thank god he didn't ask if I wanted to just leave - I honestly didn't know what I would have answered. I wanted to leave, but I wanted to stay, to torture myself by staring, even as we stayed out in the backstage staircase until the very last moment before the lights went down and we stumbled to our box.

Across the way, Thom looked as abjectly miserable as I did, though he did his best to put on a brave face as his children asked him questions. His daughter tried to cheer him up by throwing her arms around his neck and trying to worm her way onto his lap, and I wanted to die again, sucking at the remains of my stiff vodka as fast as I could get it down.

The rest of the ballet slid by in a blur of sugarplum fairies and glitter. Nothing made any sense any more. The music swirled around my head and made me feel vaguely sick, I couldn't even concentrate on watching Peter onstage, even as James tried to point him out in each dance.

And then, finally, it ended. I tried not to look across the theatre, but Thom was trying to catch my eye. He held my gaze and inclined his head ever so slightly, flicking towards the lobby, as if inviting me to meet him, but I shook my head. No way, no way in hell.

"What do you want to do?" James was asking me, very carefully.

"Find Peter, say congratulations, I don't want to spoil your evening."

"I'll go back and find him, and explain. You stay here, I don't want you wandering around with that... philandering pop star about."

"I'll be right here," I promised. I had no desire to see Thom, either. As I sat, my head started to spin, properly. I was feeling more and more sick, though from alcohol or terror, I couldn't quite tell. Or was it heartbreak? No, I didn't love Thom, it wasn't heartbreak, it was just deep, deep disappointment, more in myself than in anyone else. What the fuck had I been thinking, getting involved with a married man, no matter how many times he told me he had an "open relationship." Open bullshit was more like it.

My head was spinning, and even worse, my bladder was starting to make its presence known. Shit. There was a loo across the balcony from me, I definitely remembered noting that during the intermission - was there any way I could get out there and make it back before James returned from backstage? What if there was a queue? No, it had been ages, the place must have been clearing out. This was becoming pressing and urgent, and it could not wait. Pulling myself unsteadily to my feet, I stuck my head out of the box's door, decided the coast was clear and made a dash for it.

I found a free stall and relieved myself, feeling somewhat better on that count, though my head was still spinning and my stomach did not like me in the slightest. The smell of urine made me feel even more queasy. My face was still covered with glitter, making a mockery of the tiny tear trail in my mascara, but I could do little more than dab at both. I couldn't be too long. I had to get back in case James returned from backstage, this wasn't fair to him, my ruining his evening like this. I dried my face, tried to calm myself, then stepped back out into the wide open expanse of the balcony...

...and straight into the path of Thom and his children, headed for exactly the loo that I had just vacated. His face lit up, in spite of himself, even as I froze, like a deer in headlamps. "Fi... I thought you... you disappeared! What are you even doing here?"

"I... my colleague's friend is one of the dancers here, he gave us the tickets." I tried very hard to drag my gaze away from the kids, two tiny blond heads, both with a strong look of their father, the same piercing blue eyes, the same wide, petulant looking mouths. "Why are you..."

"Ruth won the tickets in a charity raffle. She thought it would be nice... for the kids..." He looked down at his offspring with obvious love in his eyes. "Agatha is in love with the Sugarplum Fairy, she..."

His daughter interrupted him loudly. "Daddy, I need the loo."

"Yes, sweetheart, it's just there. Can you go by yourself, or are you scared?"

"I'm fine," she insisted petulantly with a pout that was so obviously his that I wanted to drop through the floor. As they wandered away, the two children seemed to be discussing me.

"Is that one of Mummy's friends?" the little boy asked.

"No, I don't think so," replied Agatha carefully. "I think that must have been one of Daddy's friends."

"Don't be silly, Daddy doesn't have friends," the boy rejoined as they parted ways at the toilet doors.

Thom stood where he was, staring at me, even as I stared after his children. "I'm sorry, I had no idea you would be here," he insisted, reaching out and trying to take my hand, but I refused to let him. "Look, I'm..."

"Don't, please," I begged, trying to look anywhere but down at his face. I towered over him in my heels.

"But I..." he started to say, but suddenly there was a woman standing by his side. At the sight of her, my stomach started to churn like a bad ocean crossing. She was small, like he was, and very slim, elegantly dressed in a brown velvet trouser suit that set off her creamy skin. She had dark hair, cut just below her jawline in a deep V that fell perfectly across her face, with neat, even features, very fine, but ever so slightly androgynous, large, prominent hazel eyes, wide cheekbones, an angular, slightly aggressive jaw that her haircut couldn't quite disguise, thick, straight eyebrows and a narrow, pointed nose. "Ruth..."

She looked at me blankly. "I'm sorry, I don't think we've met?"

"Oh. Yes. This is Fiona..." Thom stuttered.

"Ah! Yes, of course." Recognition dawned in her eyes, she definitely recognised the name and I wondered what Thom had told her about me. The interview, the photoshoot, he had discussed it with her that first night. "I'm sorry, you're nothing like I expected. Thom, you completely fibbed."

I watched for a look of panic on his face, to match that vomitty sensation in the pit of my stomach, but his face was a mask. "I'm sorry. What did you expect?"

She tossed her head back and her hair cascaded like a mahogany wave. "I don't know. Younger. Blonder. Definitely younger."

I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. If she had wanted to demolish me, this was certainly the way to do it. Yes, I was an ugly old hag. But I deserved whatever she dished out, didn't I? I was sleeping with her husband. The kids reappeared beside Thom, and I felt my knees buckle. I was going to be sick, I was definitely going to be sick, and I needed to get into the loo, quickly, so I turned and fled. 

In a blind panic, I pushed open the door to the loo, found an empty cubicle and threw myself into it, barely managing to open the lid before emptying my guts into the bowl. I vomited and vomited. I didn't know I'd even drunk that much until I was belching up vodka and champagne into the toilet. It seemed to stop for a moment, and as I laid my cheek against the cool porcelain, I felt hands gather up my hair and hold it up, out of the water. Someone reached over my head and pushed the flush button, carrying the stinking mess away, but another heave overcame me and I threw up again. My head cleared slightly, and that seemed to be the end of it, so I turned to look at the person holding my hair. The last person in the world I would ever have expected to see. Ruth.

She gazed back at me evenly. "Are you pregnant?" she finally asked.

"Fuck no," I spat.

"I'm sorry, I haven't thrown up like that since Agatha, I just thought..."

"Purely alcohol induced, I assure you. Don't worry." Condoms and morning after pills had made certain of that.

"Oh," she replied in a slightly more soothing tone than I'd have managed under the circumstances. "Can you sit up? We should get you off the floor."

"Yes, I think so." As I staggered to my feet, wobbling on my three inch heels, she put down the toilet lid, and helped me to sit on it.

"Wait here. I'll be back in a minute, so don't go anywhere." I closed my eyes and laid my head against the cubicle wall, just wanting the room to stop spinning and my head to stop pounding. I must have slipped in and out of unconsciousness, as when I opened my eyes again, she was standing in front of me, holding a plastic cup with a thin layer of something yellow at the bottom. "Drink this."

"No way, no more alcohol, please."

"It's not alcohol, it will help. Just get it down, one shot. Pinch your nose and swallow."

I took the cup from her just to get her to shut up, sniffed at it and wrinkled my nose, though it didn't really smell of anything except olives. Screwing up my courage, I tipped it into my mouth and swallowed it without tasting it. "What the fuck was that?"

"Olive oil with a pinch of salt in it. It'll line your stomach and hopefully stop the vomiting." She paused. "Where are your friends, do you think you can walk yet?"

I closed my eyes then opened them again. The oil had definitely helped, that was a trick I would have to remember for the future. "James went backstage to get Peter. I said I'd meet him back at my seat."

"Come on, we'll get you there," she told me in a jaunty, mumsy tone that probably worked wonders with her petulant daughter. Holding out her arm, she pulled me to my feet then lead me out to the balcony. Thom was sitting down, his son next to him and his daughter sitting in his lap, his face clouded with worry until he saw us. "I've found your Alice in Wonderland," Ruth informed him.

Thom shook his head and made a face. "I never said she looked like Alice in Wonderland, I said she looked like Alice Liddell."

"Oh." Ruth smiled in recognition, looking me over again. "Well that explains the lack of blond hair. Now I see it. Though... to be honest, Thom, I think she looks more like Judith."

"She looks nothing like!" Thom protested.

"Oh she does, she's very like."

"You've forgotten what Judith looked like."

"I haven't - I lived with her, I painted her many times, I know what she looked like, this one could be her sister."

"Nonsense, Judith was blond," Thom snorted.

"She wasn't when I met her, she was dark. She dyed her hair blond for a play, and then - then you had to dye your hair straw yellow to match."

Thom groaned and rolled his eyes as I tried to work out what on earth they were talking about. I had guessed that their relationship was unconventional, but discussing my looks, in front of me, as if I were cattle, it was too much. I was about to swear at them and tell them both to stop it when I saw Agatha's eyes staring at me like two huge shining things.

"I like your tiara," she said calmly.

I had forgotten I was even wearing it until I reached into my hair and found it, sitting askew, so I pulled it out. "You know, you can have it," I sighed, handing it to her. If Peter ever reappeared, I would just have to write off the loss.

"Oh, Agatha - what do you say to the nice lady?"

"Thank you, nice lady," lisped Agatha as her father helped her fix the thing precariously on her own head.

"Thom, do you want to go backstage and look for them because, really, it's past her bedtime," Ruth directed, glancing at her watch. Family bedtimes. I couldn't bear to think of it, feeling another wave of nausea washing over me.

"Fiona! We have been looking everywhere for you..." I turned to see Peter, still half in his Moorish costume, striding across the balcony towards us.

Ruth and Agatha stared at him, until the mother spoke. "Peter Oboteye! You were absolutely marvelous. Please can I ask the biggest favour, can you sign my daughter's program for you? She is obsessed with the Ballet."

Peter swelled with pride, his annoyance completely forgotten. "I would be delighted to. What is your name, little girl?"

"And mine, too," interjected Thom's silent older son, rushing to his feet.

"I'm Agatha, and this is my brother Noël, with two dots over the e, don't forget, it's important."

"Noël as in Noël Coward, I presume?"

"That's right."

James looked at me crossly as Peter fussed over the children. "Where the hell have you been? I told you to stay put."

"Leave her alone," Ruth rushed to my defense. "She's been poorly, this one. Alcohol poisoning, and looking at the state of you, I suspect you're very much to blame." She glanced sharply at the second bottle of champagne he had clasped beneath his arm. "Take her home and put her into bed with plenty of liquids." She turned around to see Peter leading her children in a mad dance across the balcony, showing them how he lead the charge of the Rats. "Well, that's not going to get them over excited and unable to sleep tonight, no, not at all. Oh well, I suppose they're only young once, let them dance. Thom, are you driving, or am I?"

"I think I am," he conceded.

"Give me some of that." Seizing the bottle of champagne from under James' arm, she took a swig, then wiped her mouth on her sleeve. She was magnificent, somehow both imperious and dashing, and I suddenly felt very, very insignificant by comparison. What on earth was Thom doing, screwing around with me in rented rooms in Soho, when he had this amazing woman in his home?

I closed my eyes as another wave of nausea hit, and felt James seize me as I started to wobble. "Peter, I'm sorry, but we're really going to have to go. Fiona is seriously not well."

Peter immediately stopped his pirouetting. "Where are you taking her?"

"I'll get a cab, take her back to Balham with me."

"Nonsense. We'll take her to mine, it's much closer," Peter insisted.

"I can't let you..." I protested weakly, but Peter overruled me.

"I live a block and a half away. I can carry you if need be. Agatha, Noël, my lovely students. Practice hard. I will make rat soldiers out of you yet."

I barely noticed the walk through a darkened Covent Garden, though I did notice that James and Peter were holding hands. They talked quietly, even as James pulled off my shoes and Peter tucked me into bed, leaving a glass of water on the bedside table. And then I heard no more.

 

I awoke to the sound of soft voices in another room, feeling like my head was pounding, and my mouth was full of rats. Where the hell was I? This was not my flat, neither was it any of the rooms at my Club. I turned over, reaching for Thom, quite sure that he would be at the bottom of this oddness, then saw the nightstand, and the glass of water that Peter had left me. And then it came back. Thom's family. His wife, his beautiful wife. If I closed my eyes, I could see the flash of her eyes and the way her shining brown hair fell into her face, and I wanted to die.

Reaching for the glass, I drank, and felt the pounding in my head abate somewhat, and tried to close my eyes and go back to sleep, but the voices next door were too distracting.

"I always thought you were such a playboy, I've never seen this side of you."

"What side of me?"

"You really care about her, I've never seen you take care of someone like that, stop what you're doing, even if you're having fun, and take care of someone else first."

"Of course, I took care of her. She's my friend, she's my colleague, I got her in that mess, and I wanted to get her out."

"You didn't have to."

"I did have to. I'm loyal to my friends. I don't know why this surprises you. I know you think that I'm lazy and selfish, and maybe you're right. But when someone I care about is in trouble, I will do anything I can to get them out of it. I don't know why you see that as a bad or strange thing."

"I'm not criticising, Jamie. I like it."

"You do?"

"I have always liked you. But do you think of me as your friend, or do you just think of me as some exotic black man you'd like to fuck, then boast about it to your mates?"

"Oh god, no, Pete. Is that what you think? No. I mean, yes, oh my god, I wanted to fuck you. And I boasted about it, because... my god, I'm proud you even let me touch you. But friends? Of course we're friends. I'd like to be more than friends, to be honest."

OK, that was it. Enough eavesdropping. I was happy for them that they were working it out, but honestly, the sticky-sweetness was enough to make me want to vomit again. I couldn't stand romance-chat at the best of times, but now... Oh god, what the fuck was I going to do about Thom?

Struggling out of bed, I found my handbag on the dressing table and dug through it, looking for my phone. There were texts blinking on it - oh god, why were there so many texts? Four texts, all of them from Thom, all in a row.

'where are u? i know u saw me. y r u hiding from me?'

'i'm sorry, that was awkward. can we talk about this? 2morrow?'

'Fi, r we still on 4 2morrow? we need 2 talk.'

'call me please. i need to kno that u r alright.'

I took a deep breath, then answered the text. 'I'm alright. But I don't want to see you tomorrow. I don't think I can do this any more.'

A minute and a half, and the phone rang in my hand, but I rejected the call without even sending it to ansaphone. Another 30 seconds and a text beeped.

'pls pick up, i need 2 talk to u'

'I can't talk about this right now. I am too raw, I don't want to say something I will regret. But I can't do this. Sorry.'

'Fi, u don't have 2 do anything u don't want. u don't even have 2 sleep with me, i just want 2 talk 2 u.'

'I can't. You opened a box that I can't shut again. I can't see you and not want to fuck you. And I can't fuck you any more, now that I've seen your beautiful wife and you lovely little children. I'm sorry. I'm not made of stone, like you think I am, and I can't.'

The phone rang again, and I rejected the call again.

'Don't call me again. Don't text me again. I'm putting your number on my block list. Don't make this any harder than it already is. Goodbye, Thom.'

I turned my phone off and stuffed it back into my bag, though I didn't really have the courage to actually block his number, not quite yet. Another day or two, and I would, but not right now. For a moment or two, my head reeled, and I wondered if I was even doing the right thing. How could I do this? Having gone without sex for so long, how could I ever get used to the idea of life without fucking him? The feel of my body without him in it. But then I closed my eyes, and the image of his wife danced before my eyes, that calm, patient, slightly knowing look in her face as she held my hair out of my own vomit. How could I do such a thing to such an amazing woman? It wasn't fair.

Opening my eyes again, I located my shoes, just under the bed, pulled them on, and started preparing to go. I stumbled out to the living room to find James and Peter curled up on the sofa together, under a blanket. Why on earth had they let me take the apartment's only bed, when they so clearly wanted to be together?

"Fiona!" Peter seemed vaguely surprised to see me. "How are you feeling?"

"Physically, a bit better, but I still need to go home, and shower, and sort my fucking life out. Thank you so much for everything..."

James sat up, detaching himself from Peter's embrace. "Are you sure you're going to be OK? Do you really think you should be alone right now? Have breakfast with us, we can..."

"No, I'll be fine. But I do need to be by myself. And I think you two need time together far more than I do."

"Call me if you need anything... when are you back in the office?"

"Thursday, I think..." I had made plans to come in when I thought I would be meeting Thom in Soho afterwards, but I wasn't so sure I'd need to now.

"Good. I will expect you on Thursday, even if you have nothing to do. And yes, I am checking up on you. I don't think you should be alone too much at the moment."

"Well, I'm sorry, but right now, I need to be at home, alone, and in mine own bed," I whimpered, not sure I could keep up the brave face for long.

"Feel better, Princess," Peter whispered. "Remember, if a man makes you feel this bad, he isn't worth your time. It's worth holding out for someone who make you feel good about yourself, not bad."

"I know, sweetie, and I hope you're both really, really happy. Just remember to invite me to the wedding," I teased, bending down to kiss Peter's forehead gently, then kissed James on the top of the head. "Thank you both, for everything. I'll see you Thursday, James."


	10. Bechdel Test

 

It was going to be a bonfire of the vanities, but I couldn't do it. I was going to take all the photos of Thom, and all the drawings and sketches of him, and rip them up and throw them away, delete them off my hard drive and get every last reminder of him out of my life. But I could not bring myself to make that sacrifice. The drawings were too much a part of me, too much a record of the emotions that I'd been through, the voyage of self discovery, awakening a part of myself I thought was dead. I couldn't destroy them without destroying a part of myself. For a moment, I wavered, I wanted to ring Thom and tell him it was all a mistake, I wanted it back, all of it, but I pushed through and stamped down the urge, dropping all of the photos onto my backup drive, and removing the originals from my computer. It had been a lovely thing, but it was now over. Time to grieve and move on.

The next day, I turned my phone back, on, expecting a slew of emails and texts and demands, but there were only work related communications. Wait, no, a new text dropped into my inbox, from an unrecognised mobile number. Fearing the worst, thinking that Thom had actually bought a new phone in order to harass me, I opened it with trepidation. But it was not him.

'Fiona, I hope you don't mind my getting in contact. If you'd rather not, I completely understand, but I would really like to talk to you. Ruth.'

I stared at the message, feeling my head spinning and my stomach churning, though I hadn't touched a drop in days. My thumb hovered over the delete button, then I closed the text, then I opened it again, reading it and re-reading it obsessively. No, I owed her a response, I did owe her that much. 

'I'm sorry, Ruth but I can't. I have ended things with Thom, permanently. I can't expect you to forgive me, but please leave me be, and give me the time and the space to heal. Sorry.'

There was no reply. At least Ruth had the sense to know when to leave things alone. If only Thom had been so wise. For a second I panicked. What if all of it had been a lie? What if Ruth hadn't known I was having an affair with her husband? What if it had been me that put the cat among the pigeons by saying we'd even had something to end? But no. If I'd let the cat out of the bag, it wasn't my fault, it was Thom's for not being honest. I tossed my phone into my handbag, took a shower, then dragged myself in to work.

James was almost impossible to be around, he was so spinning with happiness. Clearly, things with Peter had gone well, as he seemed to be walked around on a permanent cloud, a daze of love shining in his eyes. I knew he didn't mean to be a pain in the arse, and I was happy for him, genuinely happy for him and Peter, but being around his happiness only sharpened my despondency. I didn't feel broken-hearted over Thom, which somehow made me feel worse, as if I were just defective and couldn't even experience pain properly. But I felt sickeningly awful every time I even thought of Ruth and the children. I had broken my own heart, my sense of disappointment was only with myself, for getting in such a situation in the first place. And then Ruth's face would pop into my head again, her sparkling hazel eyes turning from amused to slightly superior, to looking disdainfully at me with such an air of contempt that I wanted to crawl under my desk and die. At least I had a conscience, even if I didn't have a heart.

James was lovely about it, he made me extra cups of coffee, brought me snacks from the cafe to make sure that I was eating, as otherwise, I would simply have forgotten, but it almost pained me to be around him when he was buzzing with romance and love. So I went home, and locked myself in my flat with sentimental nineteenth century novels and just tried to blot out the world. I'd lived without sex for five years, before Thom, and I could do it again, without too much trouble, maybe even easily, if I got out of the habit of his body.

A week went by before I'd even realised it. I was supposed to be making plans for Christmas, in only a few weeks, but I just couldn't be bothered this year. I didn't fancy making the trek back to see my parents in Wales, as I just couldn't face the enforced jollity of relatives and the unnatural coldness of my family home. James and Peter were planning their first Christmas together as a couple, and they did invite me to come and have supper and carols with them on Christmas Eve, but I wasn't sure I could face that, either. Really, I wanted to stay in my flat and eat cold leftovers and watch the Queen's Speech on the internet.

Still, I dragged myself into work now 3, sometimes 4 days a week, just to have something to do, and somewhere where I was expected to be. There was work - there was loads of work in the run-up to Christmas - extra schedules and previews to get online, and a dozen journalists' year end lists to compile - and I was very grateful to be kept busy. So busy that I was actually surprised when one of the receptionists popped her head in and told me I had a visitor in reception.

"There must be some kind of mistake, I've got no meetings today," I told her.

"I get the feeling it's personal, not business," the receptionist added.

"What? Why?" Suddenly, I feared the worst. Thom wouldn't try to come and see me at work, would he? He knew what company I worked for, but I'd never brought him in the building. "Who is it? Is it a man or a woman?"

"A woman. Ms Lloyd? I didn't catch her first name."

Well, at least it wasn't Thom. I dug under my desk for my shoes, slid them on my feet, then emerged, blinking, like a mole, from my office. She was standing with her back to me, all I could see was a shiny wave of mahogany brown hair, over an artistically draped bottle green woolen shawl. But when she turned, I would have known her face anywhere.

"Ruth?" I stuttered, shocked. She was, again, the last person I'd have expected.

"Fiona." She walked towards me, smiling, took me gently by the elbows and brushed her lips across my cheek. She wasn't wearing make-up, but she was wearing some intriguing scent, earthy and slightly musky. All the hairs on the back of my neck stood up as she released me. "Thank you for seeing me."

"What on earth can I do for you?" I asked, trying desperately to think of somewhere I could take her. The meeting rooms were open, but the walls were glass, too public. My office? Could I get rid of James for a few minutes so we could be alone? But James saw us coming before he could even ask, astonishment shining on his face. "James, you remember Ruth, right?"

"Yes, of course. Hello. Um... I'm going to go and make a fresh pot of coffee, then I'm going to go and check on the server room for about an hour. Would you like a coffee, Ruth?"

"Yes, please. No sugar, and soy milk if you have it."

"Media hub in Soho? I'm sure I can rustle up vegan milk of some kind for you," James chirped and slowly backed out of the room, trying to keep himself from staring, even as his eyes bugged out.

"Self facilitating media node?" she laughed. "I had no idea such places really existed outside of Channel Four comedies." She entered my office like a questing knight, gazing around at everything in fascination, her wide hazel eyes seeming to take in every detail. I found her a chair, and she perched on the edge of it, her back as straight as a poker. "What a beautiful poster, is that yours?" she asked, pointing towards the one decoration I'd managed to hang in the room, over my desk.

"Yes, thank you. James and I agree on very little, design-wise, he's all into elegant, understated minimalism, while I love Victorian maximalism. But we did both manage to agree on Charles Rennie MacIntosh, so that poster was allowed." OK, art was a safe topic, I could talk about art.

"Have you seen the school he designed in Glasgow? Oh, of course you must have. It's stunningly beautiful. I have bits and pieces of his stuff I've managed to collect in my own house. We have one of those ancient Cotswold farmhouses, and nothing really works in it without looking like chintzy sorts of tat, but Arts and Crafts is one of the few more modern things that looks really nice and brings the place alive."

James returned with the cups of coffee, then absented himself again quickly.

"You didn't come to see me today to talk about interior design, did you?" I ventured, sipping at my coffee before turning back to her.

"No." Ruth laughed, an unexpectedly deep, throaty laugh, rich and contralto, like her speaking voice, and I felt my throat go a bit tight. "I came here to ask just two things of you."

I took a deep breath. "I'm not sure I have the right to refuse anything, though I am a bit of a coward, and I'm a little afraid to find out what you want." I felt so defensive, having her in my space like this, but oddly I felt more like groveling than going on the attack.

"I don't think you're the cowardly type at all, I think if anything, your problem is foolhardiness, and stumbling in where angels fear to tread," she replied, so incisively it almost hurt. "But there is no need to be afraid. They are not horrible things, I ask of you. Or at least, I don't think so."

"Shoot - I mean, ask." I cringed at how that echoed another request I'd been given, just three months ago.

"Firstly, I wanted to ask you to dinner. Don't fib and say you have other plans - Thom says you always have dinner at your club on Tuesdays, and I imagine that you are a creature of habit."

"Dinner?" I stuttered. Again, that was the last thing I'd have expected, though I wasn't sure what I was expecting, to be honest. Blood? A pound of flesh? "Did Thom put you up to this? Why is he making you do this? I don't understand..."

Her eyes flashed magnificently. "Thom didn't make me to do anything. I don't think anyone could _force_ me to do a thing if they tried." The defiant set of her slightly masculine jaw and the uprightness of her posture convinced me this was the truth. "I wanted to get to know you, to understand you. And for you to understand me."

"I told you, I've stopped. The affair is over. There is nothing to understand."

She shook her head slowly, her hair flowing back and forth like a silken wave, and I was seized with the odd urge to reach out and tangle my fingers in it. "That's the other thing I want to ask. Start sleeping with Thom again. That is, if you want to. But do not let some mistaken sentimentality over me stand in your way."

"What?" I exploded. Although I wanted to be diplomatic and hide my emotions, there was no way I could conceal my shock, as the blood drained out of my face, my jaw opening reflexively as my eyebrows crept up across my forehead. But slowly, the colour came back into my face as I felt my cheeks flush with shame. "Whatever this is, it is sick and I want no part of it. How can you come into my life, and sit in my office, and ask these things of me? Why would you do that?"

The mask of her face broke for the first time, and something that looked like pain, or desire, flickered underneath. "I'm sorry, but do you have any cigarettes?"

"I don't smoke."

"Neither do I. Well, mostly I don't smoke. I don't smoke at home, and I told Thom I gave up for the sake of the children, which I did. But some cravings are stronger than reason, even when you know they will kill you eventually." She paused, leaving me to try to work out what she meant. "Do you mind if we go down to a cornershop and buy some? I'd like you to come with me. I don't like walking about London by myself."

"Of course," I conceded, looking around for my coat. I knocked on the door to the server room, and informed James "We're going out, I don't know how long we'll be, but you can have your office back."

"This is a lovely coat," Ruth purred as I slung the long black wool overcoat around my shoulders, gently touching the astrakhan around the cuffs. "I hope it's vintage, though?"

"Yes, almost certainly. James made me buy it, I'd never indulge in anything so opulent for myself."

"It suits you. All you need is a fur hat, and you'd look positively Russian."

I looked askance at her as we clattered down the stairs together, trying to figure out why she was being so nice to me, but she said nothing as we made our way down the street towards a cornershop. She bought a small pack of cigarettes and a box of matches, then I lead her down to Soho Square, as there was no smoking in the office. Being outside made me feel somewhat more relaxed, and less guarded. Perhaps it was the sense that I could run away if she made any sudden moves, but as we settled on a secluded bench, I studied her closely as she lit her cigarette, holding her hair carefully out of the way and cupping her hands around the glowing match like a soldier.

"You still haven't answered my question. Why are you doing this?"

She sucked deeply on the cigarette, her lips going almost white with the pressure, then exhaled a long plume of smoke. I'd never seen anyone look quite so glamourous while smoking, and was almost tempted to ask for a cigarette myself. "The most obvious answer would be that Thom has been miserable since you left him, absolutely despondent, and believe it or not, I love Thom, and I can't stand to see him like that."

"You're either fucking nuts, or you're a martyr, and I can't work out which."

"Have you ever been together with someone for 22 years?"

"No. I don't usually make it 22 days, to be honest." It twinged, the fact that Thom was the first man to ever make it past my boredom threshold to spin a fuck into a relationship of sorts, of even a few meagre months.

"Then I don't think you have any right to draw moral or psychological conclusions about my actions." She spoke quietly, without malice, but there was an unstated threat behind her words. "I broke something, by coming between you. Something that was really quite important, I think. I know my partner's rhythms, intimately. I know when he buzzes and hums and boils over with ideas, drawing and writing and weaving stories and songs, that's his natural state, that is how he is meant to be. And when he stops, and when he sits around fretting and complaining and staring off into space, that is not his natural state. I'm an artist myself, I know what it's like to have someone interfere with your processes, to stop up the flow, how frustrating, how painful that is, how much it hurts. I don't ever want to be the person that stops that, for him. I think you should continue, carry on, and go through whatever there is between you. With my knowledge and consent. And I knew you would not believe it, if that request came from him. But I thought you might, if it came directly from me."

My head reeled as I stared at her, her perfect face, her shining hair, wondering why any man on earth would not find such a beautiful woman to be enough. She was dazzling, especially with the cigarette clenched between her lips, the plumes of smoke wreathing her head. "Ruth, why do you put up with this? Why do you run his errands? Why do you let that man dictate the size and space of the run of your heart?"

"What?" She seemed as genuinely perplexed as I did.

"You are so... stunning. And I don't just mean that you're beautiful, I mean that you have a kind of... graciousness, that anyone would be lucky to be blessed with. You could have any man in the world, on your own terms, in a relationship that didn't have to be like this, all scheming and plotting and sharing out part and parcel like so much meat... Why do you let him impose this on you?"

"Let him? Impose?" Her face was animated with confusion, but also with the vague twist of amusement. "You make a lot of assumptions if you presume that he imposes this kind of partnership on me."

"So you're OK with this? That you stay at home, and take care of his children, and wash his knickers while he goes running around screwing some strumpet in cheap hotels in Soho? And not just that, but you actually drive down to Soho to bargain with his mistress for him? You think that's all you deserve?"

She actually burst into laughter, great ringing peals, her eyes crinkling up at the corners with such mirth that she looked so lovely and so consumed with joy it almost hurt to look at her. "OK with it? Fiona, you have it so backwards. He imposes nothing on me. It was my idea that we have an open relationship. From the start. These were the conditions that I established, in order for him to maintain a relationship with me."

"It was your idea?" That shocked me, to the core. "What, do you boast to each other about your conquests? Do you flaunt your lovers at him like Rebecca de Winter?"

Her face lit up, even as she laughed. "Du Maurier! I love du Maurier, she captures the vagaries of human emotion and the impossible demands of the human heart like no one else on earth. Have you read The King's General? I was in love with that story when I was  teenager."

"I know it well," I stuttered. "When I read it, I couldn't help but think... handsome red-headed rogue from North Cornwall - I couldn't help but see Richard as Richard D James, he has that same kind of brooding intensity to him."

"You're right, that would be an inspired piece of casting. What's your favourite of her novels?"

"The House On The Strand, without a doubt. That's such a fantasy of mine, the ability to slip back and forth between strands of time, but when you're in Cornwall, it seems so possible..."

"I know, it's the most addictive concept, isn't it? To be able to step in and out of time. Always observing, never able to touch or interfere, like a ghost from the future. But you're right, in certain parts of the world - Cornwall, Wales, bits of Western Ireland, it really does seem like the layers, the strands of now and then are just a little bit thin, and you really could step between. The liminal zones of the far Atlantic rim, there is this sense of possibility..." Her eyes misted over as she talked, and I found myself almost forgetting that I thought her lifestyle was revolting, so fascinated was I by her words. "Oh, Fiona, come and have dinner with us. We're not monsters, I swear. We're just trying to find a path that works for us. It would be so much easier for you and I to be friends."

"Friends. How can we be friends, when I've been fucking your man?"

She laughed again. "You read du Maurier novels, and you still have to ask that? Come out and have dinner with us. Just get in the car and come. If we leave now, we can get on the Westway ahead of the traffic."

"Why would I do that?"

She looked me directly in the eye. "You haven't been drawing since you left him, either, have you?"

That hit me right in the pit of stomach. She was right, though I didn't know how she knew. "Alright. I'll come. Just this once."

What was I thinking? I needed my head examined. But I sent James a text saying I was taking the rest of the afternoon off, and followed her down the street, reognising the car before she even pointed it out. I'd seen it parked outside my flat. I'd seen it in the parking lot of Whitchurch Forest. And as I climbed into the passenger seat, I tried to forget that I'd fucked Thom in its back seat, down tiny country lanes near the woods.

"Have you ever been in love?" Ruth asked abruptly, as she threw the car into reverse and backed out of the parking space.

"What? Why do you even ask?" I wasn't even sure how much Thom had told her about me.

"Thom told me this word, that you used. Aromantic. I wanted to know what it meant. If you had really never been in love, or if you had once been in love so deeply that you had your heart split so completely that you were never capable of loving again."

"How much has he told you? I'm not sure I like this, you knowing everything about me, when I know nothing about you."

"Well, you have an hour and a half's drive to ask me whatever you like, Fiona. But don't worry, he doesn't tell me details of what you get up to. And I don't care. But he was intrigued by this word, 'aromantic'. He wanted to know if I knew what it meant. And I confess that I don't. I thought I had a complete map of the female heart, but this is a new one to me."

"No, I don't think I've ever been in love. Well... there was a time when I thought I might know what it meant. But either I genuinely fell in love three times a week, when I was younger, or I've never been in love at all."

Ruth snorted with laughter. "I don't discount that someone can fall in love three times a week, but it seems unlikely."

"I've experienced that kind of infatuation thing, that physical love at first sight strike - or at least lust - which blossoms so brightly but fades under any kind of scrutiny. I've had crushes, of course. But I don't... I don't bond. It's like I lack some kind of glue, like my brain just doesn't produce that kind of chemical that makes people want to pair-bond and mate for life."

"You seem to bond with your friends. James spoke very highly of you, he said you were a good friend, and very loyal."

"When did you speak to James?"

"Do you remember much of last Tuesday evening?"

"No, to be honest."

"That's probably for the best."

I paused, trying to search through the missing bits of my memory, but it was useless. "What's it even like, to meet someone, and want to spend the rest of your life with them? How does that even work? What would possess someone to want that?"

"Well, in my case," she began slowly, without taking her eyes from the road. "It wasn't love at first sight, if that's what you're thinking. I met him at college. Thom was obsessed with my... my roommate. He used to follow her around, and just kind of stare at her. I found it quite alarming, to be honest, though obviously not as alarming as Judith did..."

"Judith. That's the girl you think I look like."

"I don't know that you look like her, specifically, but you are very like. I suppose it's because you're both tall, and rather willowy, with big, dark eyes, and that beautiful, clear, milk-white Celtic skin." I raised my hand to my face subconsciously. My utterly untannable Welsh skin was a source of endless frustration to me. "It's quite a funny story, with the benefit of hindsight. Thom used to follow her around like a puppy, though he never found the courage to actually speak to her. She would try and confront him, and he would just scurry away. So, because Judith was my... friend, I resolved to try and speak to him, to understand why he was acting like this, and make him stop. And I found a fierce intelligence under all that hair, so I persisted. And we became friends. The irony being, I eventually took Judith to see his band - it nearly frightened Thom out of his skin, he wouldn't even look at her, so she went off in a huff. Then Thom wrote a song about the incident, and a few years later, that song went to number one in America, and we are now living in a house he bought with the profits of that song. Life has strange quirks."

I stared at her, trying to fathom the depths of how long ago this must have been, how long they had been together, how much they had been through. After all that, how could she just hand her husband to another woman without so much as a complaint? "So you inherited Thom from Judith, and now you're giving him back to a woman you think looks like Judith? Is that Freudian or something?"

"Your mind works in such strange ways," Ruth laughed, signaling to turn onto the Westway. She was quite an aggressive driver, pushing her way in where I would never dare, intimidating other drivers with her verve. "I can't fathom you at all sometimes."

"Well, that's mutual, Ruth." I could not get over my shock, how alien I found her mind, her strange tangle of carefully regulated emotions.

But rather than be offended, Ruth merely laughed. "I didn't 'inherit' Thom from Judith in any way that you're implying. Judith moved on to RADA at the end of the semester and left us both behind, without a backwards glance. It took another two years for Thom and I to get together as a couple."

"That long? I can't even imagine being with someone for two years, let alone taking two years to hook up with them."

"Well, there were some other things I had to get out of my system, first. And maybe university is a time for just hooking up with people, playing the field, experimenting, rather than coupling up and pair-bonding, as you put it."

"I just remember hard graft, really. I had to work my way through uni, I didn't have time for boyfriends. I was already reviewing bands for the NME, and working a shit job as a barmaid, and trying to complete an art degree. I don't know when I would have had time to play the field."

"I can sympathise. I did a couple of stints working at the local hospital while I was at art school, there was never enough time."

"So that's how you know the trick with the olive oil."

"I learned a lot of tricks, working with the more difficult patients. It helps enormously with recalcitrant daughters - and boyfriends." Her eyes flashed with mischief. "It took me a long time, to become properly attracted to Thom."

"Physically or romantically?" I wondered. Other people's relationships were such a mystery to me.

"I think romantically, first. I had to really get to know him, very deeply, on an incredibly intimate level, before I actually wanted to sleep with him, or set up a life with him. We were friends first, for years, before we were ever lovers. He told me everything - every miserable crush, every failed affair - I know how he works, inside and out. So I already knew how he was going to treat me, before we got together. I knew he had a good heart, and great compassion, even though he's awkward."

"It seems so one-sided to me. Does he know you as well as you know him?" The whole thing so seemed so confusing to me, perplexing and constantly surprising, like trying to carry on a conversation in a foreign language.

"He knows me well enough to give me the freedom that I need. That's what you don't seem to understand. That my freedom, my space, my... liberty, inside and out, is more important to me, than the need to keep a leash on my partner's cock."

"He gives you what you need? That's really important to me, to know that, to know that you're getting what you want, and what you need." There was the edge of desperation to my voice, as well as disbelief, as if I could not believe she wasn't just telling me what she thought I wanted to hear.

She nodded unhesitatingly. "He gives me security - I'm not even talking about the financial security, and oddly, that was never actually originally a part of the appeal. Getting involved with a musician, even a 'hotly tipped' one - that is never going to be a recipe for stability. So I am astonished that he has been so successful at it. I always rather thought that we would be living forever on the good graces of my family, and I had accepted that. But no. In the end, it's not that at all, though I admit it doesn't hurt. The security that he gives me is the security of knowing that nothing that he or I do will shake up the foundation of our bond, that we are a unit, we are a team, we are permanent, come what may, and come who may."

"So you're checking up on me, to find out what my designs are. To make sure that I'm not a foundational threat to your marriage, that I'm just a passing whim. That yes, when I say I am Aromantic, I mean that I am, in fact, totally disinterested in romance, or marriage, or pair-bonding, or stealing your husband away from you and your two beautiful children."

Ruth took her eyes off the road and stared at me evenly, though she wasn't angry, her eyes were filled more with a kind of pity that made me even more annoyed than anger would have. "You _are_ hard. You are so hard."

"Imagine trying to live in a world without love," I stuttered thickly, as if feeling my way, on hands and knees, painfully slowly through a desert landscape with no map. "Where you cannot feel, and you cannot express love. Imagine trying to make sense of that. Imagine never knowing how people feel about you, from one day to the next. Imagine having to reassess, every damn day, whether the people who you were close to yesterday will be the same again tomorrow, based on signs and signals and portents. This is what it's like for me, Ruth, every day of my life."

Ruth took her hand off the gear shift and reached out, taking my hand in hers, cupping it in her fingers as she slowly raised it to her lips and kissed it, gently. I felt an electric shock go through my body as I turned to her. "I can't imagine how hard you have to be, to survive like that."

"So, are you asking me, do I love your husband?"

"Partner. We're not married. I don't believe in marriage. Patriarchal bondage and anti-woman oppression."

Something inside me blossomed at the casual air with which she tossed this off, the cliche turning to something powerful in her hands. I wished I could be half as brave and bold and confident as she was. "Do I love your partner? No. I like him. I like him immensely. I like talking to him, because, as you say, there is a fierce intelligence under all that hair. Yes, I like fucking him, because I like that he makes no demands of me, beyond fucking him. But most of all, I like that he is absolutely completely predictable and reliable. And if he says he will call, he will call. And if he says he will be there, he will be there. And if he says that he cannot, then he cannot. And I do not have to ask him, every morning, if we are still lovers, because love doesn't come into it. So am I a threat to your stability? No, I'm not."

"I never said you were." She had still not released my hand, holding it against her lap as she drove, and I realised that I didn't want her to let go. "I think we should be friends, and I think we should be honest with one another. Because in 22 years, I've seen so many of my friends' marriages founder, marriages that were built on far more love and passion and good hopes than my and Thom's partnership ever was. And they crash and burn, not because of the affairs, but because of the lying. We have only one rule: don't lie. No one lies, no one gets hurt. And that rule has got us through everything. Now. Shall we be friends?"

"I will try to be," I managed to choke out, looking directly at her, suddenly feeling a wave of admiration and respect for her. This woman, who should be my rival, who had every right to hate me, she was reaching out to me as few of my actual friends ever had.

"So let's talk. Let's get to know one another. Let's talk about the things we love. I've seen your photographs - your pictures of Thom are very good, you made him look beautiful, and we both know he's a bit of an odd looking man."

"But odd looking is beauty. I don't like perfection, in fact, I hate it. I like flaws, I like the imperfections that let you know something was made by a human being. That's what true beauty is. Uniqueness."

"I absolutely agree. Have you read Walter Benjamin?"

"Course I have. We did occasionally do theory at Goldsmith's."

"I'm a print-maker, that's my medium. I use a lot of old methods - actual old fashioned type setting on a manual press. Wood cuts, and linoleum cuts, and even sometimes, when I have the patience, copper point engravings. And people say to me, why do you bother with that? You can scan something and print it with a computer, and have 1000 perfect copies of it, almost instantly. But that isn't beauty. When I make a woodcut, there's always some tiny mistake. And every time I put the ink on, it's different, the colours change and fade with each impression. It's unpredictable, no matter how skillfully I prepare them. That's what I love about it, it's so completely different from something that's mass produced."

"It's weird, though, I don't have a problem with things that are mass produced. They can be beautiful, too, in a different kind of way. If they're designed really well, within the constraints imposed by the form. Like, I love chartpop. I absolutely love bubblegum pop, as a craft."

"Ha ha, don't tell Thom that."

"Oh, we fight over it, all the time. We have terrible arguments, it's one of those things we can't agree on, at all. I just think so much creativity goes into making this small, perfect, accessible, appealing thing, in a very constrained format, that when it still manages to survive all those constraints and be good - that's amazing to me. Because when you have absolute artistic freedom, freedom to record nine minute prog records if you like - anyone can come up with something distinctive. But to work within such tight constraints, and still get across your personality and your message across - you have to be so much more clever and so much more imaginative."

Ruth laughed. I liked making her laugh, the way her eyes crinkled up and her nose turned up at the tip when she giggled delighted me. "I can absolutely see your point. And you must infuriate him, because I can't think of a rebuttal to that."

"Oh, he tries. But he's yet to crack that one. Which is of course, completely ironic, given that you and I, we are little, small craftspeople. You make prints - and my main medium isn't even photography, I do little sketches in pen and ink. Thom isn't one of us - he's basically trying to pretend that he doesn't make a living mass producing five million small pieces of plastic at a time. He wants to pretend he's a craftsman doing one-off handmade pieces, when he's essentially working in a BMW manufacturing plant."

"You are actually cruel." She was still laughing, though, even as she accused me of this.

"I'm not cruel, it's the truth."

"I can see why he's obsessed with you, if you tell him that to his face."

"Now who's being cruel? Let's not talk about him any more. What about you? Do you prefer working in colour or black and white?"

"We would fail the Bechdel Test, wouldn't we? Two women, they have to talk to each other - about something other than a man. Every conversation comes back to Thom. He'd love this. It would feed his monstrous little ego." She laughed gently, to show that it was not cruelty behind this statement, but rather the patient acceptance of her partner's faults.

"Is it really ego with him, or is it that deep insecurity?"

"It's a mixture of both, each feeds the other. You will learn to tell the difference - you'll have to."

"Oh god, we're still talking about him."

"We talk about him because he's what we have in common - so far."

"No, I get that women do that. They talk about men as a way of bonding with one another. But I have to wonder if we do it because we've been taught for so long that our own desires, our own selves - the subject of women - is not really worth talking about."

"Oh, you are up on feminist theory, aren't you? And here I was hoping you'd recognise the Bechdel Test from the actual comic book, so we could shift the subject to art. Because your drawing style often reminds me of graphic novels."

"Wait, you actually read Dykes To Watch Out For?"

She smirked. "I love underground comics, I have since I was at school. Do you follow it, too?"

"No, you're right, I just know it from feminist critical theory. Do you have it, because I've never read the real thing."

"I'll dig it out for you... if I can find it. Had to hide the more explicit stuff from the kids, because it's very very lesbian." She watched me carefully out of the corner of her eye as she said this.

"Nothing wrong with that. In fact... kind of saucy. I'm really intrigued now, to be honest. In a professional sense, of course," I hedged, trying to diffuse the sexual tension of the subject. I'd learned that lesson with Thom - talk about my work and people would think it was a come-on. "I'm always on the lookout for potential pieces for Incandescent Magazine. Are there lots of lesbian comic books?"

"Some. Though I do draw a line between comics written by actual lesbians, drawn from true lesbian experience, and those straight-boy fantasies like, for example, Love and Rockets."

"I really loved Love and Rockets, though, I thought it handled it quite well, it really did capture the intensity of teengirl love affairs. Both with other women, and with young men. The whole Maggie and Speedy thing was heart-breaking, don't you think? Though I can understand why actual lesbians might see it as exploitative, the early stuff was rather male gaze 'teengirls in their bedrooms' but it grew into something really quite sweet. But maybe I'm just saying that because I had the biggest crush on Hopey when I was 15."

"Really? I probably shouldn't tell you this, but Hopey was my fashion icon for most of my teens and 20s. I loved that haircut - I would still love to have it, but you'll probably have noticed that Thom prefers long hair on women."

"Oh god, you do pander to him. Is that what marriage means? You can't even get your hair cut the way you like? Why would anyone live like that?"

"Love. It does strange things, that you would never understand until you felt it. That making someone else happy becomes more important than your own little concerns. So I have long hair because he likes it, and he spikes his hair like Hopey for me. But anyway, we're talking about that man again. You asked me if I preferred working in colour or black and white - colour every time. I just love the vividness of colour, the emotional impact that it can have. I do a few things in black and white, just to experiment, but I'm never as happy with it. What about you? Though I suppose if you said you work in pen and ink..."

"Yeah, I'm black and white all the way. I love the starkness of it, the graphic impact. I guess you can probably tell I was massively influenced by Los Bros Hernandez when you see my drawings - that very hyper saturated comic book look. Though I suppose I'm getting more into grey tones using patterns. I love texture."

"Oh, me, too. I think if I were starting all over again, I'd be a textile designer, I love the tactile nature of it. It's so much easier with felt, and wool, and velvet. The softness of it." She reached down and touched the fur on the edge of my jacket. "Touch that, and then touch the rough wool of my shawl - and the soft wool of my cashmere jumper..." She shrugged one shoulder off her shawl so I could see the soft turquoise jumper beneath. Entranced, I reached out and touched, tentatively, my fingertips aching as I felt the bone and flesh underneath the soft sheen of the fabric. I was so tempted to move my hand a few inches and touch the soft dark mass of her hair, it was like a compulsion. But instead, I got as close as I could bear and gently cradled her dangling emerald earrings.

"I have to say, these are lovely. Where did you get them?"

"Thanks. A present from a friend, who brought them back from India for me."

"Wow. Extravagant friends, you have."

"I am blessed."

"I can see you have such an extraordinary sense of colour. Your outfit is so beautifully put together. I'm hopeless. I have to have James check over my clothes if I'm going anywhere important - I tend to just stick to black. Can't really go wrong."

She glanced over at me and smiled. "Well, with your dramatic colouring, you probably have to be quite careful. I imagine primary colours would be quite overpowering on you. You'd be better with slightly muted jewel tones, garnet and sapphire blue. Oh, good lord. I need to pay more attention to the road. I've nearly missed the exit. Hang on..." Wrenching the steering wheel, she moved the car over into the outer lane, just before the slip road for the exit disappeared, decelerating quickly as we dropped off the motorway onto a back road. "You've not been to our house before, have you?"

"No. I thought it would be gauche."

She raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Your morals are quaint, but they are rather adorable."

"Quaint?"

"It's odd that you would think it would make a difference, to sleep with someone in their house, or out of it."

"I don't know. It seems like it would. Make a difference. Add insult to injury, as it were. Mostly, I think it has to do with your children."

"I don't know why they would be bothered. Though I must admit, you have won a friend for life, with Agatha, for that tiara."

"Your children are OK, with your lifestyle?"

"Why wouldn't they be? They don't know anything else. Anyway, it's not as if we flaunt it. We try not to do anything that would deliberately upset them. But it's not as if children are stupid. And personally, I think it's much more harmful, for small children, to see their parents lying to them - or hurting one another, or disrespecting one another, violence, abuse, and not just the violent kind, but the manipulative, undermining kind - than it is for them to see people loving one another. We have a bohemian house - we're raising bohemian children. It doesn't seem to do them any harm."

She drove through a small town and out the other side, though I didn't recognise anything. Thom had chosen our rendezvous spots very carefully, this was miles from anywhere we'd been together. As we passed a small farm shop, she glanced over at me.

"Are you alright with eating vegan food, or do you want to stop and get something extra?"

"It's fine, I'm a vegetarian," I replied, relieved to finally find something about me that Thom hadn't already shared with her.

"Oh, good. See, that, is a constant battle with Noël and Agatha's school. Alternate lifestyles, light drug use, lesbian covens, divorces and open marriages, no one bats an eyelid. But try to raise vegan children, and oh my god, it's handbags at dawn, and you are the worst parent is the history of the world forever."

"Honestly, I think the terrible food at school lunches was what turned me into a vegetarian to start with."

She pulled off the main road and onto a smaller lane, honking merrily as she rounded tight corners at speed, though frankly it terrified me, the pace at which she drove, no matter how familiar she was with the road. This was picture postcard England, hedges and green fields, somewhat bare for the winter, with copses of treeless trees high up on the skyline. The little car climbed higher and higher, passing chocolate box houses with cottage gardens and expensive cars in the driveways. Too rich for my blood, clearly. We went through a village straight out of Midsomer Murders, a cluster of houses, a few shops and a pub around a village green, then turned off the country lane onto and even more winding lane, ringed on either side by towering hedges. We drove on, right up to the side of towering chalk downs, then pulled up in a farmyard, in front of a house that took my breath away. It was a large farmhouse, built of that warm creamy-yellow Cotswold stone, a gable at each end, and a U-shaped courtyard in the centre. Ruth parked the car in front of the house, then peered into the barn at the other end of the yard.

"The Jeep isn't here, he must have gone to pick up the kids. I think we're alone."

I breathed a sigh of relief at that, though whether it was the children's return, or the thought of running into Thom again that scared me, I wasn't quite sure.


	11. Family

"Come this way. I'll show you the studio first," she directed, climbing out of the car and walking off without even bothering to lock it. We were in deep country here, clearly. I followed her around the outside of the house, covered in clinging vines so it was hard to tell where the trees ended and the house began, looking like it had just grown out of the side of the hill. At the back of the house was a shed, and she pushed the door open gently. Did they really leave their house unlocked? No, it was just the entry hall, a mud room filled with racks of type and other junk too heavy to walk off with. Ruth fiddled with a keyring and let me into the house proper. "This... is my world," she explained, throwing a lightswitch and leading me into the room.

It had clearly once been a conservatory, as the ceiling and part of the walls were glass, open to the northern exposure, but now it was a beautiful studio, festooned with bits of paintings, huge brightly coloured squares of home-made paper, a large hand-press in the center, surrounded by smaller presses, blocks of carved wood and trays of type. And everywhere, hanging up on wires by clothespegs, were her prints.

She took my coat from me, and I wandered in a daze, staring first at one, then at another. She wasn't kidding about loving colour - there were deep sea-greens and blues and smokey purples, and bright chrome yellows merging into sunset pinks. And bold black lines writhing across the pages, like the curves of a woman's hips. Hair, everywhere, in her designs, macaroni locks of art nouveau and spiral corkscrews, then familiar tufts of hedgehog spikes. Some of them had text with them, not looped across the top in staggering drunken lines like in my work, but in blocks and clouds, printed into or on top of the drawings like William Blake. Ruth watched me as I wandered, and I realised she was expecting some kind of reaction.

"This is... this is absolutely incredible. I can't believe the clarity of the colours! What kind of ink do you use?"

"It's just Windsor and Newton, but I tend to double up the concentration and use it much thicker than they recommend. It often means the first prints get ruined, but as you can see - the results are much more vivid."

"This is just..." I stopped to admire a large print, a voluptuous blonde woman reclining on a river bank, her hair dipping into the water and twining with the weed, the yellows burning against the dark greens and blues. "I'm stunned." I moved to the next one, a woman with a flapper bob and elaborate earrings, sitting in a wicker chair with the headrest like a kind of halo around her head, her hand on a small animal in her lap, reaching and batting at some peacock feathers in a bottle on the table beside her. "The Queen of Sheba."

"Not quite. That's my friend, Cassie." Glancing around nervously, she extracted a cigarette and stealthily lit it, fanning away the smoke.

"I wish I could do colours like you can."

"I've seen the drawings you posted for Thom. I think your colour sense is good, you just need more confidence to explore it."

"Oh god, I'm embarrassed that you saw those, now that I've seen your stuff. This is just so far ahead of anything I've done..."

"Nonsense," she snorted. "I love the way you do text. The way it frames and twines through your drawings. It's very imaginative, I almost want to steal it."

"You can have it, if I can steal your colours. This woman with the red hair, who is she? She's astonishingly beautiful."

There was the flicker of pain across her eyes. "An old friend. I paint her from memory, really."

"She's gorgeous. All of your women are gorgeous. Do you only paint women?" I paged back through the prints I'd already looked at.

"Do you only draw men?"

I paused to consider that. "No. I know I do draw a lot of men, but that's some kind of asexual frustration, I suppose. I draw a lot of women, too, but when I do, they tend to be me, rather than representations of anyone else."

"Well... let me see. Though you might be right - I think the only man I've painted with any regularity is Thom. Hang on, you might like this one."

She handed me a framed watercolour of an impossibly young and long-haired Thom, sprawled across a bedspread with his head in one hand, a fistful of blond hair displaced by his fingers and cascading across his bare shoulders. I looked at the painting then looked up at her. "He was so beautiful then. I'm glad that you see it, too."

"That was, I think, the day that I finally fell in love with him. Or realised that I was in love with him, and had been for some time. I think it shows. It's one of my favourite paintings that I've ever done."

"I don't suppose you have any paintings of Judith, do you?" I don't know what devil made me say that, and her face creased into a frown as she thought about it.

"I'll look... but that would be in an old, old portfolio somewhere. I'm not sure I want to dig that deep tonight."

"No, never mind, it was just a mad fancy." I turned around and stared behind me at a painting on the wall, high above the door, that I hadn't noticed before. It was that red-haired woman again, lying half naked on a divan, her breasts sheathed in a translucent sort of fabric, but the rest of her body bare, the patch of titian hair shining between her legs. The eroticism was unmistakable in this one, and I found myself wondering, though I dare not ask, due to that half flicker of pain on her face, if this had been another of Thom's lovers. Nothing would surprise me in this house any more. "I like your paintings, but I think I like your prints the best. This is going to sound terrible, and arrogant, but I mean it as a compliment - they remind me oddly of some of my own drawings, but run through a kaleidoscope of colour."

 Ruth laughed. "I'm not offended at all. I was actually wondering if you were going to pick up on the resemblance." She paused, sucking the last of her cigarette before stubbing it out in an empty flowerpot. "Thom mentioned it even before you did. I was oddly flattered."

"Do you think it's part of his attraction?" A shiver ran down my spine.

"I think it's just an odd coincidence. Anyway, shall we go in? I need to get the supper on. I was going to make a vegan shepherd's pie - gardener's pie, I suppose."

"Sounds lovely. Can I help?"

"If you're any good at washing and peeling potatoes, knock yourself out. They came up out of the ground yesterday, so they're probably fairly grungy."

I followed her through into a huge, warm farmhouse kitchen with deep windows that looked out across the valley, picking up the fading last light of the day as the sun set. I had a sudden twinge of hiraeth, nostalgia and homesickness not for the kitchen of my parents ugly semi, but for my grandmother's old kitchen, though her view was not of rolling English farmland but of steep and staggered Welsh hillsides. "I can certainly peel potatoes."

"Glass of wine while we work?" Ruth suggested, digging in a well stocked wine rack.

I thought for a moment about refusing, about how I needed to keep my wits and my senses about me, but the smell of it was too much to refuse. "Go on, twist my arm, then."

She poured, and we clinked our glasses together, her eyes sparkling in the halogen glow as she toasted me, and I felt my heart melting. Why were we here, in this weird situation? In any other life, we'd have been friends, maybe even sisters. More than anything, I just wanted to pull her close, and hug her, and apologise to her, rest my head on her shoulder and pour my heart out to her. This was a woman I could tell my secrets to, and know that she'd keep them, close to her heart. I saw it all, so suddenly, going on holiday together, sitting by the seaside in Cornwall, sketching the ocean. I wanted to take her to Wales, show her my mountains, and the steep valleys I'd roamed as a child. I could imagine sitting up with her, all night, at her posh boarding school, whispering secrets in the dark, sticky lips pressed against hot ears in the midnight hour. I saw in a flash, how she must have looked as a child, and then I saw in another flash how she would look when she was old, her hair a veil of white, the laugh lines around her eyes like a glittering spiderweb lattice. And I was consumed with the sudden, impossible, passionate desire to kiss her. To put my hand on the back of her neck and pull her face towards me, press my lips against hers, push my tongue into her mouth, and drink her like the wine I still held clutched in my hand.

And suddenly the door slammed, and the spell was broken. God, what was I thinking? Ruth? It was madness. The wine and the paint fumes going to my head. There was the sound of children's laughter, and the clatter of three pairs of feet on stone floors. "Fi, fie, foe, fum, I smell the blood of an English tum!" roared Thom, driving the children before him, shrieking, as they cascaded into the kitchen. He didn't even see me at first, but why would anyone see anyone except Ruth when she was in the room? He staggered towards her, laughing, threw his arms around her and kissed her warmly, and my heart exploded with jealous rage.

I had expected that. Been prepared for it. But there was now a difference I could not account for. It wasn't Thom I was jealous over.

She laughed and clasped his head to her, then pushed him off her. "English Tum, knock it off. We have a guest." He turned slowly, then caught sight of me, blinking as if he hardly believed his eyes.

"Fiona." He froze, half his face wide-eyed in shock, the other detached and oddly calm.

"Nice Tiara Lady!" Agatha exclaimed and launched herself at me, hugging my knees. "Have you seen the King of the Rats lately?"

"I had drinks with him, just this weekend," I managed to inform her. "He wants to know how his ratty army have been getting on, learning their steps."

"I practiced extra hard in dance class, but the teacher keeps wanting me to learn dumb girl roles. I don't want to be dumb girl, I want to be a rat soldier," she shrugged, and flounced off after her brother into another room.

"No television before supper," Ruth called after them.

"It's alright, it's the news," Noël insisted.

"That's even worse," Ruth grumbled. "Thom, check if they're not watching Al Jazeera, you know it gives them nightmares - and make sure your clever son hasn't hacked the parental block off the Murdoch Channels again."

"I wouldn't watch a Murdoch channel if you paid me, bloody Thatcher-loving Tory bastards," echoed a voice from the other room, so like a younger version of Thom that I had to blink to make sure he was still standing in front of me.

"Language!" tutted Ruth.

Thom's mouth twitched up slowly into a proud smile, though he stayed rooted to the spot and made no move to go to his children. "That's my boy."

"Yeah, well, it's not you that the school rings when he's been sent to the Headmaster again for calling one of his classmate's fathers David Cameron's Fluffer, is it?" Ruth complained, though I could see the sneaking edge of pride in her eyes, too.

Thom merely shrugged. He still hadn't moved, staring at me as if he was afraid I would evaporate if he took his eyes off me. I stared back at him, trying desperately to work out how I felt about him, if I really had changed my mind - or changed it back again. I had forgotten how small he was, how thin and how delicate, the skin stretched so tightly across his cheekbones. "You're really here."

"Yes. Your wife fetched me, all the way from London."

"Partner," Ruth corrected, as she found another wineglass and poured Thom some wine.

"What... how... why are you here?"

"Ruth invited me for dinner. And she... explained... things... in the car. She was right. I didn't entirely believe it, coming from you. I probably owe you an apology, for doubting you."

The smile of relief flooding his face was almost palpable as he stepped towards me, touching me gently on the elbow. "Fiona, I don't lie... ever. Well... nearly never."

Ruth coughed lightly. "I'm going to spend tonight at Chris's, if that's alright. Fiona can stay here, if you want... or I can drop you at the train station in Oxford, if you prefer. Whatever you like. It's up to you."

I closed my eyes and felt myself reeling with something that wasn't the wine. All I wanted any more was to make Ruth happy. If she wanted me to fuck her husband, I would fuck her husband. If she wanted me to go home, I would go to Oxford and crawl all along the rails back to London if it made her happy.

"It means you'll have to get the kids to school in the morning tomorrow, but it should be fine. I'll leave you the Jeep. You can pack their lunch, whatever's in the fridge. That marinated tofu that Agatha likes is in the tupperware container." Ruth's voice burbled on, the very model of cosy domesticity.

"Fi, what do you say?" Thom demanded quietly, and I realised he was touching me.

I opened my eyes and looked at Ruth, mentally tracing the lines of her face, her cheekbones, her immaculately pointed nose. "Ruth, are you sure you're OK with this?"

"I suggested it in the first place," she responded, her eyes like two semi-precious gemstones boring into mine.

"Alright, I'll stay." The words dropped into the busy cosiness of the kitchen like another few drops of dew into a duck pond, and passed almost entirely unremarked but I had no way of expressing exactly what they cost me, what bargain I was making with myself.

"See? It's all sorted," Ruth purred, humming about the kitchen. "Are you nearly done with the potatoes? Just pop them in the same water as the swedes."

I remained oddly quiet, all through dinner, almost afraid to breathe, let alone speak, for fear that the truce would be disturbed and the whole scenario would simply disappear. But no one else at the dinner table seemed the slightest bit concerned. Agatha kept up a running commentary, showing off, either to me, as dinner guest, or to her parents. Thom and Ruth bantered with one another, intellectually sparring over dinner; there was absolutely no concession made to lower the intellectual tone of their conversation to the level of the children. Only Noël remained oddly aloof, and several times I caught him staring at me, his oddly familiar blue-eyed gaze making me feel distinctly uncomfortable. I didn't like being eyed that way by a ten year old.

"Don't take it personally, Fi," Ruth laughed, pouring me another glass of wine. "He's just shy around new people. When he gets used to you, he'll open up, won't you Noël?"

Noël did not reply, he merely raised his left eyebrow with a devastatingly knowing look that was so like his father I wanted to laugh, then he went back to dividing his edamame beans into more complex arrangements. I waited for the inevitable battle over his decision not to eat anything green on his plate, but it was not forthcoming. How odd, how different from the running battles of my own childhood, where I would not have been allowed to leave the table until I'd cleared my plate. But children in Bohemian families, it seemed, were not bound the same rules of vegetable eating, and the boy sloped off to do his homework leaving the beans untouched. Ruth and Thom exchanged meaningful glances, but as he frowned, she shrugged and let them get on with it.

Without waiting to be asked, I helped clean up, trying to make myself useful as I loaded the dishwasher, trying not to disturb the cosy domesticity of the family, but they disappeared off to the living room, one by one, crowded around the warmth of a large wood-burning stove. I sat, perched on the edge of the sofa with some lush coffee table art book that Ruth had lent me, watching the kids work furiously at their homework as Thom hovered, explaining carefully the answers to Agatha's endless questions.

He was a kind and engaged father, that much was self evident, so completely different from my own family that I couldn't even fully grasp it. But as I watched them, I had no idea where I fit into this picture, in fact, what on earth I was doing here. How would they handle it, would Ruth simply announce that she was off to see her lover, or would she slope off after they had gone to bed? My presence had neither been explained or dismissed, I was simply there.

But finally, as Thom disappeared upstairs for a minute, Agatha fixed me with her imperious gaze. "Fiona. Are you Mum's friend, or Dad's friend."

I blanched, slightly taken aback, then stuttered. "I'm not sure. I'd like to think that I'm the friend of both of them, now."

This information completely flummoxed her for a minute, then recovered herself. "But Mum said she was going out to see _her_ friend, tonight. Are you going with her?"

As the meaning of her usage slowly dawned across my wine-befuddled brain, I felt my face flushing. Christ, was that how they explained it to their children? "No. Actually, I think I'm your father's friend."

Agatha turned back to her brother. "Told you she was Dad's friend. I always knew he had friends, too."

At that moment, Ruth finally reappeared, wrapped up in her green shawl. "Behave yourselves. Yes, Fiona is your father's friend. So be kind to her, and pay attention if you asks you to do anything. I'll pick you up at school tomorrow afternoon, so no fuss over going to bed tonight, do you hear?"

My head reeled as I watched Ruth embrace and kiss both of her children goodnight. It shocked every nice middle class value I had, to watch them discuss it so openly. But was this really any worse than parents who had divorced, and shuttled their kids between them like so much baggage?

And then suddenly she was standing in front of me, bending down to kiss me gently on each cheek. "And you, Fi. Behave yourself."

Thom appeared at the door. "Are you off already?" They embraced, and kissed, a proper kiss, on the mouth. "Give Chris my regards."

"Have fun." Ruth looked back at me and winked. I couldn't take much more of this or my head was going to explode. I needed another glass of wine if I was really going to spend the night here, with their two preternaturally intelligent looking children looking back and forth between me and their homework with knowing smirks. No, this was too much for me. As soon as Ruth was out the door, I excused myself and retreated to the kitchen.

I poured myself another glass of wine, and stared out the window, watching the headlamps of the car sweep down the drive and out of sight. If I turned out the light, I could watch the car disappear into the village. I heard the soft sound of footsteps behind me, then the swish and click of someone closing the kitchen door.

"Are you alright?" Suddenly Thom was a reassuring presence behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist.

For a moment, I considered lying, then remembered what Ruth had said - it wasn't the cheating that destroyed relationships, it was the dishonesty. "This is completely weird."

A long pause, as his arms strayed slowly upwards, one hand closing around my breast. "Do you want to go home?"

I thought about it. If I hadn't had so much wine in me, I probably would have lost my nerve and turned around and run. But then I thought of Ruth, how much she seemed to want me to do this. And how my doing this gave her the space to be a disappearing pair of headlights on the other side of the village. "No, I said I'd stay, and I will." I paused, feeling his breath hot on the back of my neck as he parted my hair and gently kissed my shoulders. "But not in your bedroom, though. There has to be somewhere else for us to sleep."

"I'll get the guest room ready. That's probably better, as it's one of the few rooms in this house with a working lock."

I turned around in his arms to face him, brushing my lips gently across his face, feeling for the soft hair of his beard. "I'm sorry... this is all so..."

"This is new territory for all of us."

Somehow that didn't make me feel any better. I might have preferred it if he'd said they were all old hands at it, and their lovers slept over on alternate weekends, with the kids as blasé as a pair of old field hands. "Are you sure your kids are alright with this? I mean, they're amazing. But... this...? Are they really OK with..."

He laughed softly. "Right now, you are their favourite person in the entire world, considering they're both up a combined total of an hour and a half past their bedtimes. I'm going to go and get the guest room ready, then I'm going to round them into bed. There may be tears, but don't take it personally."

"Well, I'll go and bask in my new-found adoration," I sighed, somehow finding the courage to make my way back into the living room, perching on the sofa in the full heat of the glowing stove, and trying not to stare back at the curious eyes. I had no idea what to say to children, and they were apparently still too astonished to actually find anything to say to me.

There were no tears, though there was a large amount of pouting, and protestations, and eventually the demand for two pairs of hugs and one kiss, which I, too shocked to refuse, granted. Finally, after about 20 minutes, Thom returned, by himself, went into the kitchen, then reemerged with a large glass of wine, and closed the door behind him to seal in the warmth.

"Do you want to be a grown-up and stay down here?" he asked, flopping down beside me, and wrapping one arm around me, pulling me back into his embrace. "Or do you want an early bedtime, too?"

"Is there a wood fire in the spare bedroom?" I asked sleepily, letting myself slip back into his arms.

"No, in fact, that wing of the house is distinctly chilly."

Wing of the house. It wasn't even the fact that he lived in a house with wings, but the way he said it so casually, as if everyone had wings of their houses they couldn't normally be bothered to heat. I was so far out of my depth I didn't even know which was it was back to shore. And then it hit me, that the thing I had found strangest about the whole evening was not the wife-swapping or the casual family dinner with my lover's children, but the fact that his house had wings. As if the whole evening were suddenly just going to fly away on them. And I started to laugh.

"What?" His grip on me tightened, as he pulled me closer, resting his sharp chin on the top of my head.

"Your house has wings. I don't think I've ever slept in a house with wings before."

"God, do I just sound like the most pompous middle class twat in the world to you?"

"You've seen where I live, how I live. My whole flat could fit in your garage."

"Stop it, you're making me feel really uncomfortable now."

"Like this whole evening isn't just..." I paused, catching myself just in time. "No, that's what's weirdest about this. The fact that it isn't uncomfortable. That this whole evening has been very cosy and very lovely and extremely comfortable, and in fact, almost disturbingly seductive, your lovely wife, your lovely family, your lovely lifestyle."

"Don't let Ruth catch you, calling her my wife."

"I know. Smash the Patriarchy. It's the kind of thing I'd have said myself. And that's the weirdest thing about all this - that I really like Ruth. I like how she thinks. In a parallel world, we'd be best friends and meet for coffee every afternoon to plot the overthrow of the Patriarchy... oh god." Raising my hands, I rubbed my face, scratching my eyes, so dry from the wine and the wood stove.

His hands slipped under my shirt, one moving up, to push inside my bra, the other moving downwards, slipping under the waistband of my pants and tangling himself in my hair. Could I really do this, let him make love to me, on this sofa where his kids had sat, doing their home work? Did he even lock the door? All I needed was for a precocious seven year old to peek through the keyhole to ascertain that I was indeed Daddy's friend. But his hand moved lower, his finger pushing between my lips and finding that I was already wet.

"Move down," he directed softly in my ear, keeping his voice down so no one overheard. "I want to spoon you." And together, we lay side by side on the deep sofa, feeling the fire warm on my front as he pushed against my back, slowly pulling my long skirt up out of the way. He'd unbuttoned his fly and was slipping back and forth against my arse, tugging my tights down out of the way before finally pulling them off entirely.

"Condom," I reminded him, almost reflexively as I felt him moving between my legs. There really was no more effective form of birth control than spending the evening with a couple of kids, no matter how well behaved they were.

"I know," he muttered, digging in his back pocket. "You open the packet, my other hand is busy." He tweaked my nipple to remind me, even though I was actually lying on his arm.

I closed my eyes as he pushed inside me, trying very hard not to think about where I was, or what I was doing, thinking only of the tiny knot of pleasure building slowly between my legs. The warmth of the fire and the mellow fuzz of the wine had conspired to make me very lazy, moving almost imperceptibly against him, slowly getting used to the feeling of him inside me again. But all I could see on the inside of my head, was Ruth's face, smiling at me with that imperious smirk and a twinkle in her hazel eyes. I opened my eyes, but that wasn't much better. The whole room seemed stamped with her personality, the Arts and Crafts furniture, the MacIntosh print on the curtains, the book of Japanese woodcuts still open on the table. But Thom's body was insistent against mine, his hand moving between my legs without being asked, to exactly the right spot, moving his hips to get better traction, thrusting into me at exactly the right angle. His teeth were on the back of my neck, nibbling exactly the way I liked. 

I closed my eyes, trying to focus all of my attention on the tickle between my legs, but Ruth kept popping back into my thoughts. The curve of her neck, the rich throaty cry of her laugh, the tangled lines of her drawings, the rich ochre and gold swirls of paint on her portraits. The harder Thom thrust into me, the more I thought of her, the rough wool of her shawl giving way to the soft cashmere of her jumper, the sinew and bone beneath. And at that moment, I remembered that she had, actually asked me to fuck her husband, and that this was her idea. She had planned it so decisively that it might as well be her hands guiding his hips as he pushed into me. In my head, their faces merged, and their bodies switched. For a weird drunken moment, I became convinced that it was actually Ruth, lying on the couch behind me, fucking me with Thom's cock.

My eyes snapped open, and I half expected to see her standing in front of us, looking down at us with that mischievous smirk, but we were alone. I could feel Thom building to his climax behind me, I recognised that distinctive snuffling shortness of breath, the way he curled his toes up into his feet and his fingers latched onto my nipple. You're not coming without me, I thought to myself, pushing back against him and grinding myself against his cock. But as I felt my orgasm unfurling, it was Ruth's face that sprang again to my mind. I closed my eyes and thought again of standing in her studio, but this time, I turned towards her, put my arms around her waist and bought my mouth down on hers, sucking her tongue into my mouth. And my body spasmed, quivering into climax so powerfully I felt my hips bucking uncontrollably against Thom. He panted, then moaned aloud, a short, high, animal cry like a fox, as he pushed inside me, then was still.

"Christ, Fi," he finally sighed, running his hand back and forth across my skin. "Even I felt you coming that time."

I couldn't even speak, I just felt my face flushing, an odd sense of shame disturbing my post-coital daze.

"No, don't be bashful." He kissed my neck carefully, moving my hair out of the way to nuzzle his nose against my ear. "I fucking love it. Whatever you did that time, I want you to do it again. Every time. I love it when you just suck the orgasm right out of me."

I closed my eyes and tried to ball my fists into their sockets to blot out the images running through my mind, but he pressed his lips against my face, trying to kiss my hands out of the way.

"God, you're like a little girl when you're sleepy. Come on, let's go to bed. I need to bank the fire, but I'll take you upstairs in a minute."

I nodded and swung my legs off the sofa, letting him crawl around me to fuss with the stove. He opened the door, pulled the condom off his prick and flung it onto the fire with a fizzling noise, watching the flames shoot up blue around it. "Thom!"

"It's plastic, it'll burn. Better than letting the kids find it in the morning. Can you grab the wrapper? I don't want to answer curious questions about that tomorrow," he directed as he poked at the fire, then closed the grill again.

I retrieved my tights from the carpet, hiked down my skirt, then followed him obediently up the stairs, tip-toeing past the children's rooms, down a short hall, then around a corner onto another landing. "Where do those stairs go?"

"Front hall, sitting room. We don't really use the formal rooms of the house, especially not in the winter. If you need the loo, it's just across the landing there. Don't worry, the kids have their own bathroom, you won't be in anyone's way."

I cleaned myself up, then relieved myself, staring around the huge bathroom with the freestanding iron tub. It was bigger than my bedroom at home; I had no idea how Thom adjusted himself to the tiny size of my flat when he visited. Finally, I slipped back across the landing and into the guest bedroom, staring around at the book-covered walls. "I didn't realise we'd be sleeping in the library."

"No, the library's downstairs. This is, well, overflow." He shrugged casually as he pulled off his jeans and slipped into bed. "My record collection's in the study, before you ask, though that's starting to take over the dining room, as well. I'll give you the grand tour tomorrow, if you like... if Ruth hasn't beaten me to the punch?"

I shook my head, turning around to pull off my skirt and my jumper. "She only got as far as her studio."

"Typical Ruth."

"What?" I felt somewhat defensive of her, even as I crawled into bed beside her partner.

"Oh, you know. Come up and see my etchings. Everybody loves showing pretty girls their studios." He laughed as he pulled me into his arms, wrapping his legs around me possessively.

The wine and the post-coital daze and the emotional roller coaster of the day had taken their toll. I was asleep before I could even get irritated at him.

 

He awoke at the crack of dawn, kissing me softly, even as I tried to bat him away. "I'm only off to take the kids in to school. You sleep in, I'll be back in twenty minutes." Kids. School runs. I couldn't cope with this. Rolling over, I went straight back to sleep. But he was frisky on his return, climbing into bed and crawling on top of me, even as I was half asleep, pushing his way inside me as my body responded to his instinctually, even though my mind was elsewhere. I'd never had a lover who'd been able to excite my body as easily as if he were playing with his own. We fit together, it was as simple as that.

As he dozed, sated, I drew back and looked at him in the morning light, the long, disheveled strands of his dirty blond hair, the unruly tufts of his pale eyebrows, the long thick lines of his sleeping eyelashes against his cheeks, the hollow circles beneath. In the morning, he looked his age, a tired, 40-something, beneath his bushy hair. I wondered, yet again, what I was doing there, lying in this luxurious bed, in this sumptuous mansion. How had I let Ruth talk me into this? I didn't love the man, and no matter how effortlessly satisfying the sex was, it just didn't seem right to carry on doing this, no matter where his wife had been sleeping. Pulling myself out of bed, I resolved to take a lovely long soak in that iron tub, then dress myself, and, when he finally woke up, ask him to drive me back to the station, so I could go home again. Back to my home. My own home. And stop playing pretend in someone else's home.

The door of the bathroom didn't lock - he had warned me about that - but it didn't matter. The kids were at school; Ruth was still out. I drew myself a steaming hot bath and lowered myself into it, trying to wash off the feel of Thom on my skin along with the sense of my own guilt. It did wonders for my muscles, though it did little for the turbulence in my head, trying to think not how I would get out of the affair with Thom, but for how I would apologise to Ruth.

A door slammed somewhere in the house, but I thought nothing of it. Probably just Thom roaming about - hopefully making breakfast or at the very least a pot of tea. That would sort my head out nicely, after a good long bath. Dipping my head under the water, I wet my hair, then rubbed shampoo into it, trying to get the smell of sex and woodsmoke out of it. I took a deep breath, then went under to rinse it off, staying down as long as I could, reveling in the warmth of the water until my lungs were almost bursting, then I slowly surfaced again. I flicked the long tendrils of my hair out of my face, rubbed my eyes, and opened them, only to realise that I was no longer alone.

There was a woman standing in the open door of the bathroom, staring down at me, almost as shocked as I was. She was tall, handsome and well dressed, in a tweedy country squire sort of way, her blonde hair cut in a severe Eton Crop. I reached for a towel, something to cover myself, but I suddenly realised there was nothing but the small flannel washcloth, which would barely cover the modesty of a large cat. Realising that my entire torso was now above water, my breasts exposed and my nipples erect, I tried to dip back under the water, but it wasn't much cover.

"Ruth," she called out, tilting her head as if trying to get a better view of me. "Were you aware that you have a nude... nymphet in your guest bathroom?"

After about a minute, Ruth appeared in the door behind the strange blonde woman, who had moved steadily into the room as if inexorably drawn towards the tub. "Oh. That's Fiona." A sigh, though of disappointment or relief, I couldn't tell, and I wanted to die of embarrassment, crossing my arms over my breasts to try and hide my nakedness from her. "He hasn't even found you a towel, has he?" To my relief, she turned around and opened a closet door, digging around for a large bath towel.

"She's absolutely lovely," the blonde woman observed in a slightly lecherous tone. "Is she yours, Ruth? Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you share?"

"She's not mine, she's Thom's, so leave it, Chris," Ruth chided, finally pulling out a large red towel and holding it out towards me.

"Yorkie? Blimey. I'd no idea he had it in him." The woman - Chris - did not move, continuing to stare down at me in a way that made me feel distinctly uncomfortable. I had no intention of climbing out of the tub and what little protection it offered me, with her gazing at me so openly. 

"Do you mind?" I finally sputtered.

"I don't mind at all," Chris whistled.

"I think I do," Ruth retorted in a laughing tone. "Go and wait outside, sweetheart." Chris rolled her large, disconcertingly baby blue eyes, so girlish and out of place next to her mannish outfit, then moved forward and rested her hand casually on Ruth's hip as she kissed her gently, then swung from the room with a jaunty glance back at me. And only then did it hit me. Her lover, Chris, the one she'd spent the night with. I'd only assumed that it had been a man. All the nude, flirtatious women in her paintings. Mummy's 'friends.' The lesbian comic books - _Dykes To Watch Out For_ , for fucks sake. There was a reason that her marriage was open, and it was nothing to do with Thom.

"Oh my god," I offered limply.

"Are you coming out of the tub, or are you going to sit there all day, until you catch pneumonia?" She craned her neck to look out the door. "Chris has gone, I promise you. Don't worry, you're not her type anyway. I'm barely her type, but she keeps me around for when the Undergrads at St Hilda's are on half term."

Slowly, I emerged from the tub, and took the towel from her, though I noted with new interest the way that her eyes lingered on my body, flickering across my breasts and down my thighs with an expression that was slightly more than just checking out her competition. "You're a lesbian," I finally managed to choke out.

"Don't look so shocked, darling, I know they have them in London, too."

"But... Thom?" My mind reeled.

"I love him. I love him more than life itself, and I always will. Thom is my soul mate, I have absolutely no doubt at all about that. But... some cravings are stronger than reason. I love him more than I have ever loved anyone in my life, but sex with a man is never going to be my first choice."

Shivering, I wrapped the towel around me, trying to put sense into my disordered thoughts, running in every which direction like the tendrils of black hair dripping into my face. "Were you ever going to tell me?"

"You're a smart girl, I thought you'd figure it out. Does it make a difference?"

"Yes!" I saw her eyebrow shoot up across her forehead. "Well, no. But... it would have made it easier to understand why your marriage is the way it is."

"No, I don't think it would. You need to understand that I'm not leaving him."

"But why would you..." My mind reeled as I thought back through the things she'd told me. The woman who had brought them together. "Judith?"

"Judith was my lover, not his, yes." She paused. "That is one of his odd quirks. He is almost exclusively attracted to lesbians. Quite useful for me - his gaydar is often better than mine."

I couldn't help myself. I started to laugh, remembering the first time I'd met James, sputtering with embarrassment that he'd initially thought I was gay. "But I'm not a lesbian. How do you explain his attraction to me?"

Ruth nodded slowly, a half smile spreading across her lips. She was so beautiful with that sly look twisting her lips upwards, so beautiful I suddenly felt very self conscious being half dressed. "It's obvious, Fiona. He's finally met a straight lesbian."

"But I don't even look lesbian!" I insisted, tugging my towel around me.

"And what, exactly, does a lesbian look like," Ruth laughed. My eyes flickered back across the room, to the door that Chris had disappeared through. "Alright, point taken. But you wouldn't have picked me out of a line-up, would you?"

"Well, you're not exactly a lesbian, are you? More bisexual, it would appear?"

Ruth frowned and shook her head, sending her hair cascading across her cheek. "No, I am a lesbian. I think I've always been one. I've known since I was about 11, I think. Until I met Thom, I thought I had it all worked out; I was a lesbian and that was that. And then I just happened to fall in love with - and chose to spend the rest of my life with - a straight man. Life is weird, Fiona. Sexuality is fluid, far more fluid than most people let on. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that the boxes are not important. But who one is, on some basic level, does not change."

I fell silent, musing over her words in my head. Three months ago, I'd have sworn blind that I was asexual, and that was some core identity I could not change - and yet here I was, in the house of my married lover, drawn back by sex even after I promised I'd give him up. But the sex I really wanted now - was it really with Thom? As I stared at Ruth, I shivered, suddenly remembering the odd urges that had come over me in her car, in her studio, in her kitchen.

She moved through, and I followed her, out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom, to find Thom sitting up in bed, drinking a cup of tea, calmly discussion excrement with Chris. "It's pig-shit you want, Yorkie," she insisted imperiously, pausing only to suck at her own cup of tea. "Cow manure and horse manure, they're both too hot, you have to age them in a compost heap for ever. But pig shit, just slap it on your mushroom beds, and you're good to go."

I stared longingly at his tea, and he shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, Fi. I did make you a cup, but Chris took possession of it."

Ruth laughed as she sat down on the edge of the bed, taking his tea from him and sipping it. "She very nearly took possession of your girlfriend, too, if I hadn't walked in to save her honour," she teased, looking up at me with what I swore was a hint of flirtation as Thom put his arm around her and pulled her into an embrace. I moved forward, unsure whether to climb back into my spot in the bed, or find my clothes and dress. "Come on, Fi, don't be bashful. Plenty of room." She patted the spot on the bed next to her gently, and for a moment I considered climbing in next to her, but noting Chris's saucy gaze, I walked around to the other side of the bed, where I'd slept the night before, and crawled back under the covers.

Thom grinned like the proverbial cat who got the canary, an arm around each of us, even though he had lost his tea to his wife. "I tell you, Chris, if you were not here, I would be taking somewhat more advantage of this situation."

"I tell you, Thom, if you weren't here, Chris would be attempting to do exactly the same thing," Ruth tossed back, without missing a beat. Thom looked slightly piqued, and glared at her with a somewhat wounded expression, but she merely laughed and ruffled his hair affectionately. "Come on, Chris, let's leave them to it. I'll try and see if I can find some clean clothes for Fiona - there's a spare pair of jeans kicking around that once belonged to one of Thom's bandmates that might actually fit someone as tall and leggy as you."

A rustle of silk and a whistle to Chris, and she was gone, leaving me feeling distinctly unsettled. But Thom had clearly been quite aroused by the entire situation, and turned his undivided attention to me, sliding on top of me with a chuckle.

"Don't, I'm still all wet," I complained as he tried to pull my towel off me.

"Yes, I can feel you are," he insisted, pushing between my legs. I could feel him slipping back and forth between my outer lips, the moistness there surprising even me. Had I been just as turned on by the same scenario? "Mmmm," he sighed as he started to push inside me, but I pulled away.

"Thom - condom!" I reminded him. It wasn't like him to forget so persistently.

"I don't want to," he insisted, still trying to get inside me. "I want to get you pregnant, I want have another two or three kids with you, move you into our farmhouse and raise our brood all together."

"Thom!" I snapped, summoning a burst of strength, and actually pushing him bodily off me. For such a small, wiry man, he was surprisingly heavy and incredibly strong.

"Hey - OK, OK," he relented, reaching for the box of condoms still out on the night table. Tearing one open, he rolled it down onto his cock, but I didn't feel much like sex any more, rolling away from him and crossing my arms across my chest. "Fi, don't take it the wrong way. It was just fantasy. Another parallel world. I wouldn't have."

"You certainly didn't seem like you were going to stop." I wasn't sure which upset me more - that he hadn't stopped when I asked him, or the fact that his fantasy secretly enticed me more than I wanted to admit.

"Come here," he sighed, pulling me into his arms, though as he pressed against me to hug me, I felt his cock move between my legs. "I wouldn't do anything to hurt you." I went limp and let him do what he wanted without struggling.

When I went back into the bathroom to clean up, I found a pair of jeans folded on the dressing table, with a loose, flowing button-down shirt in dove grey, that actually fit me. So Ruth was going to attempt to wean me off my all black wardrobe. I dressed and stalked downstairs, now desperate for a cup of tea.

"Can I borrow a computer?" I finally managed to ask. "I need to check in with work - or at least tell James that I'm still alive."

"Of course," offered Ruth. "You can use Thom's in the study - though it has all kinds of parental controls over it, as the kids are always on it. Or you can use my laptop in the studio if you want a little more privacy."

"Thanks, I appreciate it," I nodded, carrying my tea through into the studio. It felt strange now, sitting beneath all those paintings of women, knowing that some of them must have been her lovers - trying to guess which ones she'd slept with, and which were just quiet loves she'd carried around in her heart. The woman with the crown of red hair - the casual insouciance of her gaze made it obvious that painter and subject had known each other's bodies and hearts. A tiny flicker of something like jealousy shot up inside me, wondering if Ruth would ever paint me like that, but I fought it down as I located her laptop and booted it up. "I need a password."

Ruth appeared beside me, leaning over me to type it in, her hair brushing gently against my cheek. "Vanessa."

"Bell?"

"No." Her eyes flickered to the painting of the red-haired woman and I realised it was her name. "There you go."

I brought up Safari and logged onto Gmail, only to see that she was already logged in under her own name. For an awful moment, I was tempted to rifle through her inbox - not even read anything, but just see who she talked to, and about what - then realised that this was exactly the sort of invasive thing I'd throw a fit at Thom if he'd done to me. Without even glancing at the subjects, I logged out and logged back in as myself.

I sent James a quick mail, telling him that I was alright, that the Yorkes hadn't eaten me, and that things were now stranger than I had ever guessed - then made the mistake of checking my work email. Oh god, crisis. And an email from James pinged back into my inbox, saying he was glad I was alive, but really, could I please sort out the scheduling mess because he had freelancers ringing him up and snapping at him. I skimmed a couple of emails, tried to log on to our portal, then realised with a heavy heart - no, this was not something I could handle remotely, on a rural broadband connection. I needed to go back to London and go into the office.

"Bollocking pigshit," I swore.

"That sounds bad." I looked up to see Ruth sitting opposite me, calmly sketching me with a lump of charcoal. But as intrigued as I was to see how she saw me, my loyalty to my job was stronger.

"I'm sorry. I need to go back to London. Can one of you please give me a lift to the station."

"Of course," she assured me. "Thom? Before you go to collect the kids from school, can you just..." But there was no answer. "Blast, he's gone already. Never mind, I'll take you. Chris! Do you want a ride back into Oxford?"

Chris appeared at the door to the kitchen, a half-eaten apple in her hand. "Do we have to take the toy back to the shop so soon? I didn't even get a chance to play with her yet."

"Could you try and pretend that you are the slightest bit civilised?" Ruth scolded, though secretly, I thought she really rather enjoyed Chris's lecherous attentions, almost as if she were living out the things she couldn't say herself. Chris just laughed and snapped at her apple. "Here's your coat, darling, if we hurry, you can probably get the early train before the commuter rush." The three of us walked out to the car - Ruth was driving, but Chris immediately went to get in the front seat. "Don't be a beast, let our guest sit in front."

"No, it's fine, I can sit in the back." I was actually slightly relieved to sit in the back, and not have to deal with Chris leering at the back of my head, even if I did have to be reminded awkwardly of how many times Thom and I had fucked in the back of this car.

But Chris immediately half turned around in her seat, starting up a running commentary of all the inhabitants of the village as we drove past their houses. "Ooh, look, there's Cassie. I'll wave, but I bet you she doesn't wave back - nope, she is still very very sore at me. She still blames me for your breakup, you know."

"Don't flatter yourself, Chris. It was never meant to be a lasting thing - she just couldn't handle the fact that Thom did, eventually, come home from tour."

"Ooh, now there's Greta and her young thing. You would never guess to look at them, butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, but that old German pervert... Fiona, you would not believe what they get up to."

"What do they get up to?" I asked, watching a pair of women coming out of the local shop, a very handsome older woman in her early 50s, with a plump 30s-ish blonde farm girl at her side.

Chris leaned forward, her eyes lighting up with gossip. "Greta... likes to watch. She's as dry as a prune, but she likes seeing anyone have a go on her little playmate, man or woman, it's all the same to her. I've had a go - and ooh, if Cassie doesn't get there first, I should see if they're up for it tonight. Don't look so shocked, nymphet - Ruth's also had a go..."

"Shut up, Chris!"

"We even tried to make Yorkie have a go, but the poor boy, he got performance anxiety and couldn't go through with it." She creased up with laughter. "All that time on the stage for practice, and he just couldn't bear to have a couple of old dykes point-scoring his performance."

I tried to laugh, for the sake of politeness, but I was actually shocked to the core. There were things that I didn't want to know, didn't want to sully my image of Thom and Ruth's perfect rural idyll.

"Oh god, it's that old witch, banging on my cottage door... what on earth does she want with me? If she asks, you haven't seen me," yelped Chris, ducking down as they went past a rambling farmhouse surrounded by acres of paddocks. If that was where she lived, the horsey tweed outfit was not an affectation.

"Poor Fi," Ruth giggled, glancing at me in her rear-view mirror. "You are rather scaring her. You should see the darling little innocent's face."

I felt suddenly, awfully, like the butt of a joke that everyone was in on except me. "What, the way you two talk - is everyone in this village a lesbian?"

Chris roared with laughter. "Rather! Really, have you never heard of the Lesbians of Lambscot? Is that only Oxford gossip, then? The sapphic ladies, they go straight from St Hilda's to Lambscot, we're absolutely notorious! Well, maybe not in London, then, I am guessing from your face. But in liberal circles... you know what they say about the Gay Agenda of destroying the family, burning bras and smashing the patriarchy with our hairy unshaven Marxist legs? Well, this is our epicentre. Welcome to lesbian separatist paradise."

I looked back and forth between Chris and Ruth, to try and get some kind of assurance that she was only joking, but Ruth's smirk was absolutely inscrutable. As she pulled up to the train station, she turned around to look at me.

"So. When should I expect you back?"

"I..."

"What makes you think she's coming back," Chris teased. "We've scared her off now, with all the swinging and lesbian key parties and things."

I bristled slightly at that. Why on earth was Chris trying to put me off? She tried so hard to be disarming with her bawdy sense of humour, but I didn't trust her at all.

"Do you want to come back, or should I just send Thom down to you?"

"I want to come back," I insisted. I wanted to sit in her studio, play with her coloured paints, watch her sketch me, let her turn me into one of those swirling multicoloured queens on her walls.

"Call when you're ready." She leaned forward slightly to embrace me, and without thinking, I put my arms around her and kissed her, a soft lingering kiss on her cheek, but one that I felt left absolutely no doubt as to my intentions towards her. And then I panicked, and I fled from the car.

 


	12. Drawn

My phone beeped while I was on the train, that distinctive raindrop sound that made me know it was Thom. 'you didn't say goodbye to me.'

'sorry, work crisis - I have to be back in the office this afternoon.'

'i didnt get the chance to tell you. i'm glad u came out. i feel like things are so much more open between us. like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.'

I didn't quite know what to say back to that. Things didn't seem any lighter or simpler for me; if anything, they seemed more complicated. 'I guess things make more sense now' was all I could think to say for myself.

'when are u coming back out? i miss you already. and aggie was asking where you'd gone.'

I smiled at the thought of his kids, then suddenly felt a stab of guilt for doing so. It was one thing to play with adults' emotions, but letting his kids get attached to me? That didn't seem fair. 'I don't know. I have no idea how bad the crisis is at work. I'll let you know when I have some idea.'

I didn't even stop at home to change - I just got straight on the tube and made my way into work. James stared daggers at me as I slid behind my desk and switched on my computer.

"Where the hell have you been? I left messages on your mobile but it's been switched off..."

"Sorry. I've been on a farm in darkest sodding Oxon."

"Sodding Oxon - is that near Chipping Norton?"

"Fuck off. There's not exactly mobile reception. I came as soon as I got your messages - the least you could do is get me a cup of coffee. Now let me see what's gone wrong."

James scurried off to the kitchen and returned with a full French Press as I went through my emails, methodically sorting them into critical, important, not so important and ignore. After a few sips of coffee, I had a handle on the size of the issue, and started fire-fighting. It was the writers, it was always the writers. Never underestimate the size of a literary ego. One writer had scooped another, the wrong review had been streamed to the site, the other writer had tried to force their article through by fucking up the keywords, and the whole scheduled publishing queue had fallen over. I backed up the text, pulled the lot, then resent them through in the proper order, with the proper keywords, and the website was up again. Soothing the egos of the offended writers, that would be another job entirely. Trying to strike the right balance of groveling apology and admonishing ticking off was difficult, but I thought I managed to pull it off, and waited for the fallout. We had one more week to pull together the End of Year lists, and I was not having any diva fits making that any more difficult than it normally was.

"Right. Fingers crossed, I think that's all back to normal. Or, at least, normal for this place. Is there any coffee left?"

"Sure." James topped up my cup, and finally started to relax. "This place goes to pieces when you're not here. If they don't extend your contract, we're screwed."

"I should speak to big boss-man before I leave. Well, I'll wait and see if Self and Amis calm their feathers first, then I will go and see him."

"I'll be your backup if you need it. But first - are you going to tell me where you have been for the past 24 hours - and more importantly, with whom?"

Oh god. I had forgotten that he had met Ruth, had seen me leave with her. "Where do you think I've been? On a farm, in deepest rural Oxfordshire, with the whole damn Yorke family."

"No! So that really was his wife. What did she want?"

"Partner. They're not married. Not that that makes a difference but... oh christ, I couldn't even explain it if I tried. You wouldn't believe me."

"I see no claw-marks and I see no blood...?"

"No, nothing like that. She's... she's absolutely amazing. I don't think I've ever known a more interesting, and amazing woman... no, I've definitely never even met anyone quite so secure, and quite so self-possessed, and just... she's brilliant, absolutely brilliant," I gushed, feeling my ears growing red at even the through of her. I'd been trying to blot her out of my head all afternoon to concentrate on my work, but the more I tried not to think of her, the more her face, her hair, the flash of her hazel eyes resurfaced in my mind.

"Remind me again, which partner is it you're having the affair with?" James teased, coming uncomfortably closer to the truth than I think even he intended. The anguished look on my face must have given the game away. "Hang on, Fi, is there something you're not telling me?"

"It's become more complicated than you could possibly imagine."

"There is nothing complicated about that gooey expression you're getting in your eyes. You're acting like a schoolgirl with a crush - yes, you are actually blushing. What is going on?"

I put my hands to my face to cover my flush. "I don't have a crush. I just think she's... She's so amazingly talented, and bright, and perceptive, and intelligent, and well read, and she makes the most incredible artwork, these wood cut prints that are, like, half William Morris and half William Blake, and she draws like... like a fucking angel."

"So what happened to the pop star you were fucking? Her husband?"

"I'm still fucking him. I fucked him three times, but... argh."

"You fucked _him_? From the way you've been going on, I assumed you'd been banging the wife now." He paused as I gulped nervously. "Jesus, Fiona, I was joking but - did you?"

"No, not yet..." James' eyebrows shot up across his forehead. "No! I didn't mean it like that. I don't know what would have happened if I'd stayed. It's so complicated. The upper classes... they're not like you and me."

"No, they just have more money and less sense."

"No, I mean, like... they're so Bohemian it's like the rules don't apply to them."

"I don't care how Bohemian people are, hearts still get broken. I want that heart not to be yours." His eyes shone with a concern I found touching.

"I don't have a heart," I told him.

"Fiona, I think you do, after all."

I paused, biting my lip, thinking about Ruth, mentally picturing the way her hair would cascade across her face, and she would tuck it back behind her ear, smiling up at me as she raised her eyebrow mischievously. "James, what does it feel like to be in love?"

"How can you not know?"

"Because I've never been in love before. In nearly 40 years, this is the first time I've ever felt like this."

"I don't know. It's hard to describe. It's like... that chemical reaction, that quickening of your pulse, and a slightly dizzy feeling in your stomach when you think about them. But it's beyond that. You think about them all the time, even when you're meant to be thinking about something else, but in a nice way. In a reassuring way, that just thinking about them can make you feel calm and kind of happy. You find yourself wanting to do things just to please them. Mentally making plans that involve them, wanting to weave them into the fabric of your life. Christ, I don't know, it's different for everyone. But when I think of Peter, I see a door opening up in my mind, and it's like... I don't know where it leads, but I know he and I are going to walk through that door together, into the future."

I closed my eyes and thought about Ruth. Yes, I could feel my pulse pounding in my chest, and my stomach tighten a little. But I thought that way about Thom, too, didn't I? The thought of Thom produced an insistent twitch down between my legs, and a flicker of lazy desire crawled up my spine, making my knees feel like jelly, but he didn't make my head spin with intoxication the way that thinking of Ruth made me feel actually crazy, like the world was spinning out of control. Mentally making plans... Christ, I kept thinking of how I could make my way back out to Lambscot, but how could I do it without Thom, or Chris, or the kids somehow intruding on us? The future - I couldn't even grasp the idea of a time next week, let alone the deep future. It just all seemed a shimmering haze of confusion and uncertainty, everything up in the air, if my contract was extended, if another commission came through, if Ruth could get the time away from Thom to take me into her studio and... fuck, there she was again. Enough.

"Fi, I have never seen that look on your face before, but I think I like it."

I frowned, unaware that I had been making any face at all. "I don't even know how I feel about this. I'm completely in over my head."

"You just watch out with those two. You're such an innocent sometimes, sweetie, and I don't want you getting taken advantage of."

"I don't know... but I trust them. They're just such strongly ethical people, they have such a strong moral compass, they're so into social justice - I just can't see them taking advantage of anyone."

"Well, if you're sure about this, pet, then don't worry. I just want to see you happy." Reaching out, James patted me softly on the hand with a concerned air, before diving back into his typical mischievous sense of humour.. "Anyway, I'm meeting Peter for a drink after work tonight, and I think right now, you really need to get very drunk and go dancing with your gay friends and let us explain how lesbian sex works to you."

"Fuck off, James, I don't think you're the slightest bit qualified to be explaining the operation of the clitoris to me. Have you ever even seen one?"

James grinned. "No, but I'm told there's a reliable map in a ladies' loo on Brewer Street."

I let James drag me out for drink after drink, and I even let Peter drag us both onto the dance floor, throwing shapes and dancing away our troubles. It was ridiculous French electro, Justice and Daft Punk and Sebastian Tellier, but it was what I needed, and Peter was such an amazing dance partner that he made me feel capable beside him. And, with the amount of alcohol I was consuming, I would be far too hungover to even think of phoning Ruth the next day.

It was Friday by the time I called her. I could put it off no more. At first, I thought I could just put her off with a text message, but then I realised I desperately wanted to hear her voice, that deep, throaty laugh. I rang the number of the house phone for the first time ever, despite having had it for months, praying that she answered it and not him, or, worse, one of the kids. The phone rang 3 times, 4 times, and I was about to give up and hang up when she finally picked up. "Hullo?"

"Ruth. Oh, thank god it's you."

"Oh! Fiona. How lovely to hear from you. Is everything alright, have you managed to sort out the massive crisis at work?"

"Yes, it's all sorted." I was surprised that she even remembered.

"It must be so wonderful to be so good with machines." Her flattery made me blush. "You're so clever. I'm hopeless with computers."

"Well, you can work those cranky ancient printing presses, so you must have some skills with machinery..." I suggested, trying to flatter her back. I just wanted to make her feel as good as she had made me feel in about three sentences.

"I suppose so. Anyway, look, I'm sorry, but Thom's in the studio. Do you want me to give you the number there? It's hopeless trying to get him on the mobile, the place is a concrete box, though it's actually even less likely they'll hear the land line. Jonny likes to steal circuits out of the phone to patch his synths through."

"Actually I didn't ring to talk to Thom, I was hoping to catch you," I confessed.

"Oh." Her voice changed, perhaps it was my imagination, but she seemed to grow warmer. "That's very sweet of you. What can I do for you?"

Think, Fiona. I hadn't actually thought that far in advance. "We never actually got to finish our conversation about art. I keep thinking about your prints, the colours of them, the unrestrained sensual joy, the way you see and capture women, and make their personalities leap off the page..." I gushed, terrified that I was sounding like the schoolgirl with a crush that James had accused me of being, but I was more terrified to stop. "Ruth, can you teach me how to make prints? I want to learn to do colours like you do, your colours, with my bold black lines... it could be so breathtakingly beautiful."

Ruth laughed, genuinely disarmed by my buttering her up. "What a charming idea. And I like your directness in asking - you are refreshing. I... yes, let's do it. I like the idea. But you must grant me something in return."

I practically sighed with relief. "Anything you like."

"I want you to pose for me. It's been ages since I had a really good life model."

"Ruth!" I found myself blushing at the suggestion - blushing more at the idea that she had brought it up than the eventuality of it. After all, hadn't I wished that she could make me into one of the sensual queens of her prints?

"Don't be bashful, Fi, I've seen you nude. Your figure is wonderful."

"Alright, it's a deal," I found myself agreeing. "When can we start? Today?"

"Today?" Ruth asked, surprised. 

Oh god, Fi, you've just ruined it, jumping the gun with your over enthusiasm. "Too soon?"

"No, actually, it's perfect. The kids are going to have a sleepover with their cousins tonight and I was at a bit of a loose end. I was just on the point of ringing around and seeing if anyone wanted to go to the pub if Thom goes late in the studio again, so you've spared me a night with the ladies of Lambscot."

"No Chris then?" I asked warily.

"No Chris, I promise. Catch the next train, I'll pick you up at the station, and we can stop at Waitrose and get something for dinner on the way home."

I stuffed my laptop, a couple of changes of clothes and my sketchbook into an overnight bag, and was on a train within the hour. How had it happened that I had come to learn the timetable of Oxford trains so completely in the past few months? Express train at ten to the hour, local at half past - I made sure to get the direct train, though force of habit almost made me change for the local Whitchurch line.

I felt abandoned, at the station, scanning the platform for her, but there was no sign of her. Perhaps she had changed her mind, perhaps the kids were not going on their sleepover after all, perhaps Thom had come home early from the studio; a thousand other panicked scenarios flickered through my mind as I made me way outside and stood by the curb, dodging buses wondering if I could even afford to get a taxi - if I could even remember the directions once we got to their village. But no, there was the silver car, at last, gliding into the parking lot about fifteen minutes late, no explanation given apart from a breezy "Oh I do hope you haven't been waiting long." Ruth had her own slipstream and I just had to give in to it.

"Oh, not that long at all," I lied. "I was just worried that something had happened to you."

"Chris rang the minute that I was stepping out the door, and I thought it might be you saying you were delayed, so I picked it up... took me nearly twenty minutes to convince her that no, I really did not want to see a student production of Lysistrata tonight. Oh yes, we were going to stop at Waitrose, weren't we? We'll just pop in for a moment, shall we?"

"Well, I have to admit that I'm relieved Chris won't be joining us if I have to get my clothes off," I tried to joke.

"I fear you've got the wrong end of the stick with Chris," Ruth told me as I followed her round Waitrose like a puppy, agreeing to whatever she wanted to feed me without complaint. "I know she can be a bit much for a lot of people, but... I really appreciate her directness. You always know where you stand with Chris."

"Yes. Supine."

Ruth sighed as she picked up an organic fair trade avocado, then decided against it and selected some locally sourced beet roots instead. "She's a bit bawdy, but since when were you a prude? I thought you were working for a pornographic magazine when you met Thom."

"So I suppose you think I'm a bit of a hypocrite if I don't like bawdiness when it's directed at me?"

"No, of course not, dear. I... need Chris's earthiness. It keeps me centered, stops me getting above myself. You, me, Thom - we all have the same problem, we live in our heads too much. I don't know about you, but I find I need Chris's slightly caustic saltiness to pop my balloon and bring me back down to earth." She stopped and turned towards me, lowering her voice. "I like to think of myself as a disembodied brain. What's that quote? Is it Douglas Coupland? Dave Eggers? _I treat my body as a station wagon ferrying the real me around like a harried soccer mom._ Very American, I suppose, but you get the gist. Chris reminds me that bodies are important - and their needs are just as urgent as those of the mind. I need that reminder."

I looked into her eyes, trying to even imagine how a woman with such a beautiful body could forget to take care of it. But when it came down to it, with my shapeless black clothes and my terrible diet of coffee and pre-prepared salad bags, I was the same way. "When you put it like that, I completely understand. I suppose I'm mates with James for much the same reason."

"I can always take Chris at face value. And she doesn't make unreasonable demands. She is direct, and she is honest about her desires and her needs, something that has not been the case with many of the women in this town." Suddenly she caught sight of a woman across the aisle, and broke off to go over and say hello.

"You coming to our Solstice party, then?" the new woman, practically a walking stereotype of a Lambscot Lesbian in her cropped hair and army jacket, inquired, peering at Ruth.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Great, great, look forward to seeing you. Tell all your friends. We want a mob. Shit - I am running so late - catch you later..." She dashed off in a haze of organic muesli.

"Actually right now I do wish that Chris were here, because at least she would have introduced me to that lesbian," I teased, though I wasn't really offended.

Ruth looked perplexed for a minute, then burst out laughing. "That wasn't a lesbian, that was Coz's wife. Honestly, Fi, you're hopeless at this, aren't you?"

"Hopeless at what? I'm not a lesbian," I insisted defensively. "Well, not yet anyway," I added under my breath.

"Come on, let's grab a bottle of wine and go home."

 

I loved the smell of Ruth's studio, almost as much as the sight of it, as she drew the thick velvet curtains and blotted out the inky blue-black night. The good, honest ink and oil smell of the printing presses, and the ghostly odor of oil paints and turpentine still hanging around the unfinished canvases. Clearing off a space on the large wooden trestle table, she sat me down with a large square of linoleum and a sharp knife.

"Now there's two ways you can go about it. There's the traditional way, where you make a separate plate for each colour - say, one for blue and one for yellow. And then you have to muck about with aligning them and making sure the image all lines up, both when you cut the plates, and when you print them. And then there's the other way, to paint the ink onto one plate, which is much, much harder, and easier to totally fuck up, but when you get it right, you get those rich, jewel tones that William Blake achieved, almost like oil painting onto paper." Her eyes lit up as she described the process, with a passion that completely animated her face.

"You're the teacher. What do you think I should start with?"

"I think you should start by choosing your image, that you want to engrave. Then you let the image dictate what you need to do to it. Choose something that you know well, that you're comfortable with rendering several different ways..."

I opened my sketchbook and started to leaf through it, looking for an image to transform into a print, then grew suddenly embarrassed that so many of my recent drawings were of Thom, sprawled out across my bed, interspersed with sketches of Whitchurch Woods.

But Ruth merely smiled. "You've really caught him there. Those flying saucer eyes and that little boy smile. I love how you always make him look beautiful. That's the way that I see him, though I know not everyone does."

"I don't think I want to etch him," I confessed. "I think I want to try something more colourful - the woods in autumn, maybe." I flipped the page quickly.

Ruth was a patient teacher, walking me carefully through the steps, showing me what to do, helping me when I needed it, then backing off when I needed to make my own mistakes. I got the hang of it fairly quickly, picking up the basics quite fast, then realised as I went along, exactly how much more there was to learn. I could do this for a lifetime and still not pick up all the different ways there were of marking textures, stippling, dimpling and scratching. I finished two out of three of my colour layers, then stood up, stretching, trying to work out the crick in my shoulder from being bent over too long.

"I think we both need to take a break," Ruth observed. "Perhaps we should stop for supper - and then it's time for your half of the bargain."

"Christ, I think I need at least a bottle of wine in me if you're serious about that."

Promptly, she opened the bottle of wine and obliged by pouring me a large glass. "Right, I'm just going to stick the oven on, and we'll have roast goats cheese and beet root salad." She grinned at me as she fetched the cheese from the Waitrose bag. "One of those nights when I'm quite glad the cat's away so we can have some naughty cheese."

I loved to watch her cook, her movements so decisive as she chopped and grated and switched pans from grill to oven and back. I never saw her consult a cookbook or a measuring cup either, she just seemed to know by eyeballing things exactly how much was enough. It was a joy to watch her at work, going at the food with the same quiet but pleased determination that she used in the studio. And the food, of course, was effortlessly delicious, simple yet tasty, good ingredients combined well - and I felt suddenly completely useless and pathetic for living on takeaways as I did. Why couldn't I just be a perfect housewife, and whip up amazingly wholesome home cooked food at the drop of an apron?

"I wish I could cook half as well as you can," I sighed, spearing one last piece of beet root off the oven tray and using it to sop up the vinaigrette dressing on my plate. "Cooking is a complete mystery to me."

"Nonsense. It's just a question of procedure. You get the book and learn it, same as anything else."

"You don't understand. I could burn water. And besides - you don't use a cookbook. I saw you. You just made it up off the top of your head."

She smiled. "I improvise, but really - it's because I've made this a thousand times. Boredom, that's the only reason I can cook. I like the routine of it; it calms me. Again, it's that centering yourself back in the body thing. Taste is a sensual pleasure. I'd forget to eat if I didn't tempt myself with nice things."

"I usually do just forget. Until the Indian takeaway next door fires up their oven and then I smell it." I finished my glass of wine and she poured me another. "Are you trying to get you drunk?"

"I'm just trying to get you comfortable."

"Oh god, yes. Serves me right. You really are going to turn the tables on me and make me do this."

Ruth stood up, moving around to my side of the table, placing her hand on the tip of my chin and holding my face up, towards the light. "You have such fantastic bone structure. Such unusual features, and yet the overall effect is completely striking. It's your big eyes, I think."

"Yeah, it's just a shame about my nose." I was just slightly drunk enough that I could withstand her gaze, looking at me so directly.

"A very British nose - Boudicea would be proud. What happened, were you in an accident?"

"A riding accident when I was 15. Bicycle, not horse, before you ask."

"No, I like it. If it weren't for your nose, you'd be just another pretty girl. That crooked nose makes you look slightly wild, maybe slightly butch, but just enough to make you beautiful."

I felt my face flush. "I'm hardly beautiful. Pretty, on a good day, maybe, when the light's not that bright. But beautiful? No."

Ruth laughed, still holding my face in her hand. "Fiona - trust me, I'm an artist."

"I have a funny feeling that saying that to Thom was what got me in this mess in the first place."

"Thom is the same, that eye of his, I'm sure you've noticed. The flaw that makes him not pretty is the same thing that makes him truly beautiful."

I stared at her noticing how her words echoed exactly what I'd told her partner, and felt a sudden desire to vomit up the truth, all over the beautiful kitchen table. No one knew this about me. No one. It was the secret I'd so carefully left in Flintshire. "Yes, but Thom's eye was an accident, a birth defect, a surgery gone wrong. I did this to myself."

Ruth's gaze did not change, her eyes clear of any hint of judgement. "Do you want to tell me about it?"

"I never wanted to be a beautiful girl. Really, I never wanted to be a girl at all, not like that. The summer I was 14, I shot up like a weed, tall, thin, coltish, the kind of body that people told me I should go to London and become a model. I didn't want to be a model, I didn't want the attention starting to get, from boys... from whoever. I wanted to be a poet, a botanist, a mountain biking champion."

"Didn't we all, when we were 14," Ruth sighed in commiseration. "We wanted the whole world, before people told us we couldn't have it because we were just girls."

"It was just after my birthday. Drunk on cheap cider and too much Sylvia Plath, I hauled my mountain bike up by the underpass, where the lorries from Chester went whizzing by. No one had ever made that jump, let alone a girl, but I wanted it. I wanted it all, or I wanted nothing. To die trying."

Ruth winced visibly, but didn't take her eyes from my own. "You wanted to kill yourself."

"That's what they said," I shrugged. I had talked about it so much after the event, gone over every twisted detail of my desire to die or not die, that there was a kind of grey, numb, blank patch where the actual memories of the jump were. "After."

"You didn't make it."

"I did make it. That jump, that is," I insisted, still feeling a tiny shudder of pride after all these years. "I launched myself like a grenade off that steep dirt path. I made the jump, but slipped, landing on the other side and smashed my face up on the handlebars." I paused, scratching the long crooked ridge of my nose, though the scars had faded to nothing under my freckles. "I spent a couple of months in the looney bin for my troubles. But my parents sued the council, because there should have been a fence, there should have been a rail - and I moved to London and went to Goldsmiths with that money. The first person in my family to go to University. And no one ever talked of my becoming a model again. I became the ugly smart girl I always wanted to be. I did this to myself."

"I don't think you're ugly," Ruth said softly, raising her hand slowly, pushing my fingers away to touch the broken blade of my nose. Her voice was so calm, so even, and I felt a rush of relief. I had stripped myself naked in front of her, but she had not judged. "I can show you, that you're not ugly, if you let me draw you. Come on, let's go upstairs."

"Upstairs?" I stuttered. "Are we not going to use your studio?"

"I think you'll find it a bit cold at this time of the year. I'll get the log fire going in my bedroom, it's much more cosy." Her eyes flashed. "Unless you're afraid to be alone with such a rampant lesbian?"

"I'm going to need more wine," I laughed grimly, picking our second bottle of the evening off the table and tucking it under my arm.

I followed her up the back stairs, realising as I did that I had never seen their bedroom. If it had been Thom taking me, I would have balked, but it seemed somehow alright going with her. And when she opened the door, I gasped. The rest of the house had been done out in tasteful arts and crafts, but the bedroom was like stepping into another world. Everything was white, and cream, and pewter - dark silver, old fashioned, rather than space age and pristine, it looked comfortable and lived in. Ruth went to the windows, pulling thick, pearly brocade curtains across the billowing lace nets, then shoveled coal and some logs into the fireplace.

"Do you need some help with that?" I offered.

"No, it's fine, I've got this down to a science. The loo is through there, if you want to change." She nodded to a heavy pale oak door, but I stood watching her make the fire.

"Coal, in a white bedroom. Are you mad? How do you ever keep it clean?"

"We have a maid, who comes twice a week. It's one of the few luxuries we really allow ourselves, but it's worth it to never have to do housework again."

Few luxuries? As I stepped through into another, slightly smaller, but still opulent en suite bathroom, I wondered if Ruth even knew the meaning of the word. Staring at myself in the mirror, I tried to psych myself into disrobing. Was this how Thom had felt, back in the Langham Hotel, all those months ago? If he could do it, I could do it. Turnabout was fair play. I kicked off my shoes, then, unbuttoning my jeans, I slipped them off my hips, then pulled off my socks, rubbing at the red marks they had left on my ankles. My knickers, for now, were staying put, but I slowly unbuttoned my shirt and slipped it off my shoulders, then unhooked my bra and removed it, cradling my breasts in my arms as I looked at myself. My height served me well, it made up for a multitude of sins, the swelling in my thighs, the slight belly, the flabby bits at the top of my arms. I didn't exercise enough, and it showed, but at least my limbs were long enough that I didn't carry the weight that badly.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what Ruth looked like nude. She was so lithe under her elegant clothes, I bet she worked out 3 or 4 times a week. Hell, she probably had a maid come round and do it for her. Or maybe she rode horses with Chris; I could imagine her powerful thighs straddling a chestnut stallion or whatever the hell well bred young women rode in the home counties. Right. Deep breath. I could do this. Throwing my shoulders back, I sucked in my gut, then strode out to the bedroom again.

There was a nice fire crackling in the grate, and Ruth had pulled two low armchairs in front of the fire. One, she sat in, holding a drawing tablet in her lap as she arranged charcoals and conte crayons on the floor. The other sat waiting, a large fluffy white rug thrown over it.

"Am I allowed to wear the rug?" I quipped.

"No, I just thought it would be nicer to sit on than a cold chair." She paused, looking me up and down with a practiced eye, and I could see her already slipping into that other way of seeing, hoping that she was seeing me reduced to lines and planes, and did not notice my nipples standing erect in the chill. "You look lovely, by the way."

"Thank you. How do you want me to sit?" I perched on the edge of the chair, trying to keep my legs together, taking care not to slouch and send my tits wobbling south.

"Make yourself comfortable. I'm going to need you to hold the position for fifteen, twenty minutes or so, so you can remove the poker from your arse."

I laughed nervously and leaned back, trying to get comfortable, letting my arms slip along the chair and leaning my head back against the chair.

"Oh, that's good. If you tip your head a little bit forwards and look at me. Yes, perfect. Is that comfortable for you?" I nodded and let myself slip further down in the chair, curling up slightly like the nymphet that Chris has called me. "You know, I'm not trying to be funny, but it's actually more erotic, with you wearing your knickers. I don't know if you're wearing them for comfort or for modesty, but that black line under your belly, it leads the eye straight down."

"I'd like to keep them on for now."

"Suit yourself."

"Do you mind putting some music on?"

"Oh, of course. I'm sorry, I keep forgetting, you're another one of those music heads. Always having to have noise around you, don't know how you ever find the space to think." But she got up and walked over to the side of the bed, flicking a switch, and allowing the soft sound of Satie's piano to fill the room. "Is this alright? Obviously, I didn't choose it, but if you want anything different, you're going to have to get up and find it yourself, and I'd rather not lose the pose."

"No, it's fine. This is beautiful. We were just talking about this piece - how much Aphex Twin ripped him off for the treated piano pieces on Drukqs..." I noted the blank look on her face. "Sorry, this means nothing to you, does it?" My heart tugged awkwardly. Clearly music was not a world that she and Thom shared. No wonder he'd been so happily surprised when I took him music shopping and guided his purchases. Could I ever be with someone who didn't share that same, instinctive urge for music? For the first time, with a terrible spasm, I found myself actually missing Thom.

"Oh, don't look like that. You'll ruin my drawing. Whatever you're thinking, please go back to what you were thinking before - I liked that wistful little half smile a lot better."

"Sorry." I looked at her face, mentally tracing the sharp outline of her perfect nose, the slight smudge of charcoal on her cheek where she'd clearly pushed her hair out of her face, and found my mind calming in a way it didn't when I thought of Thom.

"That's much better. Just capture that thought, and hold it. For another fifteen minutes."

"Can I break for wine?"

"I think maybe I should get you a straw for the next pose."

"You mean I have to do another one after this?"

"I've got you now, darling, and I don't intend on letting you go."

Finally, after what felt like forever, she let me move. I picked up my wine and swigged about half the glass, then stood up and stretched my limbs, tingling from too long inactive.

"Oh, that's perfect. Can you hold that for about a minute and a half? Just a quick gesture drawing."

"God, you're a hard taskmaster." Still, I tried to hold my position, one arm raised above my head, the other behind my back, until I could do it no more. The way she looked at me, her eyes flickering up and down my body as she drew, it made me feel distinctly aroused. I turned around, holding my back to the fire to warm myself, then carefully hooked my thumbs under the waistband of my knickers, and slipped them off, stepping out of them as Ruth's face lit up in a slow smile. "Shall I lie down, maybe? That would make it easier for me to hold the pose for longer."

"If you like." She turned in her chair as I sprawled across their bed, feeling suddenly very sexy and powerful, rolling over and trying to get comfortable. "I can't see your face when you lie like that. Roll towards me slightly... yes, with your hip up like that."

I lay my head against my arm, shaking my hair out of my face and letting it lay across the bedspread in a black curtain. "What do you want me to do with my legs?" I stretched lazily, then drew them up into my chest.

"Not like that. Looser, more unconstrained."

"Unconstrained?" I asked mischievously, slowly sliding my legs down and then gently teasing them apart. Ruth's eyebrow went up and the expression on her face seemed to be fighting between interest and dispassionate observation.

"Fi..." she warned, then shook her hair out of her face in her characteristic gesture. "Alright, you can pose like that if you insist, but I warn you, I need you to hold it for twenty minutes."

I laughed and brought my legs back together, looking for one last sip of my wine before settling down to pose. "I'm starting to understand why Thom got such a hard-on that first time I photographed him."

"Well, I'm quite glad you haven't got a mischievous rising penis to fuck up my drawing. Lie still!"

Some impish urge seized me, and I found myself moving my hand down my body, reveling in the feel of my bare skin against my palm, before slipping it between my legs. I was already moist with anticipation, and I drew my finger out glistening. I enjoyed watching her work, I knew, as an artist, what she'd be doing at each step, guessing her activity from her actions. Without taking her eyes from me, Ruth raised her pencil, marking off delineations with her thumb, and started to map out my proportions. I raised my finger to my lips, then gingerly tasted myself. I had no idea what a woman would taste like, salty or sour, like semen or like blood, and was surprised to find that I didn't have much of a flavour; the scent was stronger than the taste. Seeing the ripple of interest across Ruth's face, I sucked my finger in further, all the way up to my palm, then slowly licked it clean as I pulled it back out.

Ruth put her charcoal down and gave me a look, halfway between disapproval and submerged arousal. "Fiona."

"Sorry," I giggled and smiled at her guiltily.

"Please stay still."

I managed to hold that position for nearly half an hour, then Ruth sat up and stretched. Without even asking, she found my glass and refilled it with wine, handing it to me. "Do you want to see?"

"Yes, please."

When she turned the sketchbook to me, I barely recognised the woman lying on the bed in a pillow of her own wild black hair, her toes curling with desire and her eyes wild, smiling seductively out of the paper like a harlot. Was that really what I looked like? A part of me recoiled, faintly ashamed, but a much bigger part laughed and took another sip of wine, sitting up and crouching on the bed, staring defiantly at Ruth as she scrambled for her pencils again.

"Oh, Fi, just stay like that a moment..." She moved forward, perched on the edge of the chair, dragging it towards the bed and resting it on the edge, sketching furiously, glancing between me and the paper. I held the pose until my muscles were aching, my shoulders tense, but I didn't change my expression, the hunger and wildness in my wicked grin.

The music changed. I hadn't even noticed that it had stopped, but it abruptly switched from the soft silence that followed the Satie, to a more insistent electronic beat, the Aphex Twin track I'd mentioned earlier. I looked up, dazed, and saw Thom standing in the doorway, holding the remote control in his hand. From his expression, I couldn't quite work out if he was angry or excited, but he moved towards his wife, wrapping his arms around her neck as he bent down beside her, peering at her drawing.

"That's beautiful. That's really beautiful. Are you going to paint her portrait?"

She moved towards him, kissed him as she showed him the other drawings. "I think so. They're good, aren't they?"

"They're blinding." Bending down, he picked up her glass of wine and drained it, then poured another, up-ending the last of the bottle into the glass.

"I wasn't expecting you home so early."

"Really." His voice was flat, even as his lips twisted into a smile. "Recording broke up early, I got Ed to give me a lift home." Moving his arms lower, wrapping them around her waist, he started to nuzzle her neck, biting softly at her ears and jawline.

"You're drunk," she observed.

"So are you." He pulled her to her feet, tugging at her shirt, grabbing it at the waist and pulling it up over her head.

"A little. Fiona had most of the wine."

"Fiona has a good head for wine." Thom turned his head towards the bed, as if remembering that I was there. "Haven't you, Fi?"

I laughed and rolled off my haunches, rubbing my thighs to get the circulation back into them after holding the pose for so long. But he was kissing Ruth again, nibbling at her lips, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her to him, even as he was reaching around behind her and unfastening the zipper of her long silk skirt, pushing it off her, catching her arse for a moment in his hands and massaging her gently. I should feel jealous, I thought to myself. I should feel furious, but I felt only curious, and still, very very aroused. Was this really going to happen?

Pushing him off, Ruth stepped away from him, revealing her body, small but perfectly proportioned, bare except for a very expensively tailored dark green silk bra and panty set that made her creamy skin look as pale as milk. "Is this really such a good idea?" she asked, her voice almost cracking with emotion despite the carefully controlled tone.

"I think it's a bloody great idea," Thom practically growled, pulling her backwards towards the bed and into the crook formed by his knees as he sat down. "Isn't this a fucking brilliant idea, Fi?"


	13. Three

Spurred into action by the sound of my name, I crawled towards him, grabbed hold of the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it up, over his head, then started to bite his neck and shoulders, all while still staring at Ruth's beautiful pale skin. He bent down, rested his head against her breasts for a minute, then turned and playfully bit her nipple through the silk, rubbing his face back and forth between them. Ruth's face was a mask, her eyes slits, even as she let her head roll back. I wanted to touch her so badly, but Thom's body was between her body and my own, so instead I moved my hands lower across his chest, not taking my eyes from hers as I rubbed my fingers across his nipples, kneading his flesh, wishing that I was touching hers instead. Everything I did to him, I stared at her, wishing I was doing it to her. I moved my hands lower still, tugging at his belt, unfastening his trousers. There was a slight tussle as he got his jeans off, then he moved backwards, maneuvering both himself and Ruth onto the bed, lying between us naked, his cock straining towards his stomach. Ruth looked at me sideways, over the ridge of his shoulder, then started to kiss him back, her eyes on mine as she bit at his lips, sucked at his tongue and tangled her fingers in his hair. I smiled and stuck my tongue in his ear, causing her to break into a grain, and pull away from the kiss.

Thom turned back to me and kissed me, his mouth tasting of wine and pot smoke - he wasn't just drunk, he was stoned off his gourd, and for a minute I was quite jealous. "Did you bring us any ganja?" I asked.

He smiled guiltily, his eyes slitted. "Smoked it all at rehearsal."

"You smoked all the pot, without me," I sulked.

"You ate all the cheese without me," he retorted slyly.

"Hang on a minute," Ruth directed, and slipped off the bed, digging in her discarded jacket pocket for a set of keys. She unlocked a draw on the night stand, and pulled out a small hash pipe and a baggy of deep green herbs. "You've got to be careful when you have kids," she shrugged as she started to pack a bowl. "Can't leave this lying around."

I laughed and twined my legs with Thom's, pulling his face back towards me and kissing him hungrily. I became slowly aware there was a tapping on my stomach, and opened my eyes to see Ruth holding the smoldering pipe out towards me. I accepted it and took a deep breath. It was smooth, but very very strong, my eyes swimming, and I almost choked, though Thom laughed, tapped my lips and then his. I got the idea and exhaled into his lungs, even as I passed him the pipe. Feeling very lightheaded and giggly, I found myself slipping down his chest, kissing his collarbone, his nipples, his belly button, and the trail of hair leading down his belly towards his cock. Now he was kissing his smoke into Ruth's mouth, and I was sucking his cock into my mouth, watching Ruth's reactions as he touched her body. I took the pipe from him, catching it before he let it fall into the bedclothes, and took a drag, and then another, sucking greedily until my head was spinning and this whole situation seemed almost normal.

I was so stoned it was hard to tell where one body ended and the next began, touching his legs as he touched hers and wondering if she could feel my fingers. Her bra was off, and he was sucking at her nipples like I was sucking his cock, and she moaned and arched her back. I ached to touch her, reaching my hands up and touching his chest instead, sucking his cock steadily, losing track of how long I'd been sucking at him until he tangled his fingers in my hair and pulled my head away.

"If you don't stop that, I'm going to come, far too soon, and then I'll be no use to either of you." He was still a bit weird with fellatio, and would never let me suck him for long. Slightly miffed, I pulled myself up the bed and lay down next to him, watching Ruth carefully over the top of his face, propped up on her elbow, studying me back. "Wait, no, put your hands on me - but gently."

I replaced my mouth with my hand, closing it around his shaft and moving it up and down gently until he moaned again.

"Do you know this trick, Fi?" Ruth asked, licking her little finger to moisten it, then pushing her hand between his legs. "He really likes this - public school pervert that he is."

"What?" I watched, fascinated, as she gently worked her little finger inside his sphincter, then started to massage him from inside.

His eyes rolled back in his head as his face glazed over with pleasure, one eyelid slitted, the other staring, his mouth slightly open, lips lolling. First he moved towards Ruth, kissing her, as I started to move my hand faster and harder, then he moved back towards me, sucking my tongue into his mouth and latching on to me. I could feel Ruth's hand next to mine, moving in tandem with me. Her face moved closer, she was kissing one side of his face as I kissed the other, but her eyes were on me, not on him. Thom closed his eyes, starting to make wild little yelps of pleasure, and my mouth knocked against Ruth's, the soft skin of her face like a jolt of smoothness after Thom's wiry beard. She murmured, and I moved closer still, knocking her lips again, accidentally on purpose. Her mouth, and Thom's, all joined together, lips, tongues, moist wetness, then suddenly, our lips left his. Her mouth was a revelation, so soft, so forgiving, like a ripe piece of fruit, her lips yielding to mine, the taste of sweet wine and beet root. My whole body shuddered as someone's hand found my breast, but it was not Thom's hand, hard and calloused from his guitar, it was soft and pliant, an artist's fingertips searching for my nipple.

Thom's eyes fluttered open as he realised that we had abandoned him, then grinned as he saw us. "Oh sweet Jesus," he sighed, his hips bucking, staring at us with eyes like saucers, clearly enjoying what he saw.

But I barely saw him. I saw only the wave of mahogany hair falling in my face, felt the softness of her skin, the taste of her mouth, the almost electric prickle on the back of my neck as my nipples leapt to her touch.

His breath was coming in those short pants that meant he was close to orgasm, bucking into my hand as I tried to keep my grip tight, but my mind was not on him, but on Ruth's face, pressed so close against my own. The spurts of hot fluid across my hand took me by surprise as Thom cried out aloud. Clearly, he had been trying to save himself, but it was too much. His body convulsed slightly, then lay still, as he slumped back against the pillows, rubbing his eyes.

Freed of the weight of him, I shifted, sitting up to get a better angle to kiss Ruth, reaching out for her body, cupping her breast in my clean hand and feeling for her nipple with thumb and forefinger. She laughed slightly, and I looked down to see her cleaning her little finger on Thom's discarded pants, then she leaned closer into my embrace.

"It's OK, you can stop now," Thom directed, but we ignored him, continuing to search each others' mouths. "No, I mean, really. You can stop now. Ruth? Fiona?" His voice took on a ragged tone, thick with jealousy, as he put his hands on our shoulders and actually tried to pull us apart. "Knock it off," he insisted.

"What?" I muttered, shooting him daggers as he forced me apart from Ruth.

"Don't leave me out. That's really..." He struggled for words. "That's not on."

Ruth looked at me and rolled her magnificent eyes, and she looked as if she was going to kiss me again, but Thom abruptly sat up, forcing his body between us. Grabbing me by the shoulders, he pushed me down to the mattress, and replaced her mouth with his own, but his beard seemed rough after her smooth skin, and his mouth was too forceful. I squirmed, and he held me harder, throwing one leg over me, then trying to push his way between my legs. But as he tried to lie on top of me, it was almost as if he remembered that he was spent, and his cock was hopelessly soft, a shriveled worm between us.

"Fuck!" he swore, suddenly realising that he was lying between two naked women's bodies, and completely useless. I wanted to laugh, but held it in, thinking it would utterly infuriate him. And then I felt his hand between my legs, and went limp. Even infuriated, drunk and stoned, he still knew what he was doing. Slipping both his middle and index fingers inside me, he pushed up against me hard, fucking me brutally with his hand as his thumb went to the other side, pushing indirectly against my clitoris from above. He knew how to move, catching the rhythm of my heartbeat and shoving up against me again and again. It was my turn to lie back helplessly as my traitorous body responded to his, feeling the orgasm creeping towards his fingers, almost against my will.

Ruth lay still, her head propped up on one arm, watching me, her eyes locked on my body, gazing at the place where his fingers disappeared inside me, as if studying for future reference. Reaching out tentatively, she brushed her fingers across my chest, watching my nipples spring up to her touch. Thom was working viciously inside me, almost raising my body off the bed with the force of his thrusts, squeezing my clitoris so tight I thought I would explode. It was too much, the pleasure was too intense to resist. I felt my breaths go shallow, contracted myself around him, and felt the orgasm wash across my body.

Slumping back, I wanted arms around my waist, wanted Thom's breath on my face, his voice in my ear, but he had already turned around, leaving me to face the afterglow on my own. Seizing his wife about the waist, he flipped her over onto her back, kissed her roughly, then parted her legs, thrusting his face between. Startled, Ruth went tense for a moment, then lay back, twining her fingers in his hair and holding him there. As he worked between her thighs, it was my turn to study her, watching the sensations flickering across her face, pain, then pleasure, then ecstasy, then a shadow of pain, a wide smile, a grimace, scrunching up her eyes and opening her mouth to cry out.

With his head elsewhere, I couldn't help myself. I brought my mouth back down on hers and felt her fasten her lips around my tongue, kissing her hungrily, touching her skin greedily, wanting to devour her, but finding her husband, infuriatingly, in the way. She seemed to take forever to come, Thom working at her with fingers and mouth, finally just placing his tongue over her clitoris and shuddering it back and forth, a minute, two minutes, and I felt my jaw aching for him, but she started to buck her hips, rising up to meet him, then finally she let out a long, low snarl, bit at my tongue, then fell back sated.

We fell asleep in a tangle, worn-out, drunk, stoned, in a post-coital daze, no longer caring whose fingers were tangled in whose hair, and whose face was nestled against whose breast, as Thom lifted the duvet and pulled it gently over all three of us.

 

I woke to the throbbing of a hangover, and the rolling sensation that someone was shaking me. "Come on, Fi, let me go. I'm bursting for a piss."

"Sorry," I sighed, letting go of the body in my arms, feeling a beard brush across my forehead in a kiss, then the shifting of weight as someone climbed out of bed. "Get me some water, please? I'm parched."

Someone else handed me a glass of water, and I drank deeply before handing it back, then moved closer to the source of the warmth. Someone else's body was in my arms now, a smaller, smoother body, softer, with wonderfully erect nipples pressed against my skin. My eyes flickered open and I saw a sharp nose, a wave of dark brown hair. Jesus Christ, I was in bed with Ruth. I didn't even want to think about how I'd got here, I just wanted to hold her, squeezing her gently, pressing my face into her hair and wondering how long this dream would last. She laughed and nuzzled my neck, pushing my hair out of the way and nipping at the soft hollow of my shoulder.

"Shall we wake and bake? It'll help your hangover." 

I moaned with complaint as she moved out of my arms for a moment to load the pipe, then felt her mouth on mine, blowing smoke into my lungs. OK, yes, I was awake now, feeling the moistness of her lips against mine. Moving my arms down, I touched her back, then ran my hands down towards her arse, cupping her before pushing my fingers between the lobes. Oh christ, yes, soft wetness, velvety folds of skin leading ever inwards like the layers of an onion. She arched her back and bit at my lips roughly, but suddenly the blankets were yanked back and cold flooded my body.

"I can't leave you two for a second, can I?" Thom's voice, irate, though I couldn't quite tell if it was genuine or playful. "Can you not even wait until I get back?"

"Hush, have a toke," Ruth directed, pulling her lips away from mine to hand the pipe to him. He drew a deep breath, then climbed on top of us, wrestling and squirming, completely destroying the warm and wet mood of a few moments ago with his sharp elbows and cold, hairy legs. "No, get off me," Ruth complained, wriggling out of the way. "Bother her with your dick, not me."

And now Thom shifted his weight onto me, pushing between my legs even as he blew another mouthful of potsmoke into my lungs. But as he pulled away, Ruth replaced his mouth with her own, and I sucked at her tongue hungrily, searching for her body with my free hand.

"Hey, stop it, you two." Thom bit at my neck, nipping me in warning.

"I want your mouth elsewhere, if you please," she purred, then nuzzled my ear gently. "And I want your finger back where it was."

Our bodies tangled together in a knot on the bed. Thom had slipped inside me, rubbing back and forth, but he had to writhe off to one side to find Ruth, thrusting into me from an exquisite angle. My hand found Ruth's thigh, and followed it upwards, laughing as I touched Thom's beard, then found her silken crack again, pushing through the layers of her skin until I was inside her, a warm, moist cave like a mouth, sucking me deeper, until I was up to my knuckles inside her.

"Deeper," she urged, rocking back and forth between Thom's tongue on her clitoris and my hand inside her. I took a deep breath then pushed all the way up inside her, half my hand buried within her, soft and wet and very, very tight, pressure all around me like she was sucking me. The three of us flexed and contracted and connected like an interlocking machine, Thom inside me, me inside her and her pressed up against Thom's face. Every surge of pleasure that Thom thrust into me, I pushed on into her, feeling her quivering around me. I cried out for a mouth, and she joined me, even as I felt the waves of pleasure around Thom's cock building up into a climax. I came first, helpless, unable to stop myself, then Ruth moaned and quivered around me, so hard I could feel her muscles contract around my hand, then finally Thom panted and pushed up inside me, convulsing with pleasure. The thought flickered across my mind. Had he put on a condom? I was so stoned that I couldn't even remember, and wasn't even sure I cared.

"Ow," winced Thom. "I'm sorry, I've got to move, I can't stay like this - my back!" He pulled out of me quickly, sending a little shiver down my spine, then stretched creakily and finally lay back down, carefully between us, one arm around each of our shoulders as he kissed first Ruth, then me. "Christ, Ruth, that was amazing. Why have we never done this before?"

Something odd flickered across Ruth's face, but I could not read it. This was news. So they had pursued their private affairs but never at the same time?

Thom rubbed his face, digging into his eyes with a grin. "This is absolutely perfect. Completely balanced, completely beautiful. Why haven't we thought of it before?"

"I had suggested it. You never wanted to," Ruth replied quietly. "Or you couldn't go through with it."

"That was different," he insisted, pulling me closer and squeezing me affectionately. "Things are very different with Fiona."

"Why?" I asked carefully, feeling the marijuana draining from my bloodstream. "Why are they different with me?"

"I think that's obvious," Ruth muttered, not taking her eyes from Thom's. "Because you're not a threat - you're never going to fall in love."

I rolled away from them, feeling like I'd just been stabbed through the chest. The pain was astonishing, and completely real. I'd always scoffed at people who claimed to have broken their hearts, wondering how on earth they could mistake disillusion of some fantasy ideal with an actual physical pain, but I actually felt as if Ruth had put a hot knife through the centre of me.

"Don't be ridiculous," Thom scoffed. "We've just never met anyone both of us fancied, who fancied both of us before." He pulled himself up out of bed, crawled over the top of Ruth with a brief kiss, and made his way to the bathroom.

When I did not move, Ruth rolled over towards me and placed her hand tentatively on my shoulder. "Fi, are you alright?"

"Of course I am. I don't have a heart, do I?" I snorted back somewhat contemptuously.

"Oh, Fi." The sad note in her voice absolutely melted me. "Come here," she urged, folding me carefully in her arms, resting her chin on the top of my head and kissing my hair. "This is all so new to you, isn't it? This is new to us, too. Forgive me."

I turned back to her and wrapped my arms around her waist, clutching so tight I was afraid I would crush her, feeling the pain in my chest ebb away, replaced by a burning joy that felt as if it would leap out of my chest and burn both of us away. What the hell was this emotion that, what the hell was this power that she had over me now?

But Thom was in a buoyant mood when he emerged from his shower. "I've got to drive over to Andy's to pick up the kids. Do you two want to come? I thought we might go for a walk in the woods, while we're over that way."

"What a lovely idea," Ruth purred, petting my hair softly. "I know how much those woods mean to you, Fi. I'd love to share them with you."

"Of course." No matter what she asked, I would have granted it to her, even if it meant having my sacred groves trampled over by shrieking kids.

 

It wasn't so bad, actually. Noël and Aggie were sated with sleep and all kinds of food they were not allowed at home, so they were both well tempered and polite, chasing each other affectionately around the paths. I actually loved seeing Thom with them, they seemed to open up a whole other part of him, selfless and generous, patient and kind. And any time that I got to spend with Ruth, alone or with her family seemed wrapped in a kind of golden halo, the hazy glow of nostalgia warming me before the moment had even passed.

When we got home, Ruth prepared what she called a "lap supper" and we all piled upstairs into the bedroom. A silvery panel I had barely noticed before flickered into life and became a television and the whole family gathered in a heap to watch Doctor Who. If it seemed odd to anyone else, to have a large family gathering on the same bed where, only hours before, the three of us had fucked like beasts, no one else mentioned it. I wasn't sure I could handle this kind of Bohemia, but it seemed a cherished family ritual into which I was accepted without question. Noël curled up in his mother's lap, while Aggie thrust herself between her father and me, putting her small arms around me in a gesture of welcome. As odd as it all seemed to me, no one else seemed to question it at all.

After Doctor Who ended, and the galaxy was saved, Ruth found a film, a Japanese anime with a worthy message about a secret flying island ruled by a wise tree, and we watched it until the children fell asleep, exhausted from romping around the forest, and were carried off to bed, one by one, in their father's strong arms.

No one seemed very interested in sex after that. We simply lay together in bed, Thom and his two women, his body still between us, staring lazily at the news and then the late late film until we fell asleep. This life was seductive. It would be so easy to just slip into their lives, the extra woman in the bed, the extra pair of hands in the kitchen, let my independence go, in exchange for meaningful glances and the occasional stolen kiss from Ruth when Thom's back was turned.

But on Sunday morning, as we all gathered in the big, warm kitchen, and Thom flipped vegan pancakes on the Aga, I reminded myself that this was not my life. My life was back in London. I had a job, and friends, and Christmas presents to buy and excuses to make to my parents as to why I was not coming home to Wales for the holidays.

"I'll drive you to the station," Thom offered, perhaps preempting his wife.

"Can I come?" Aggie immediately demanded.

"No, I happen to know for a fact that you have homework to be done," Ruth informed her.

"Did it at Uncle Andy's."

"Liar," contradicted Noël, but even their arguments were polite.

"I'm sure Fiona will be back," Ruth assured them, glancing up at me as if to confirm.

"Um..." I hedged, feeling quite exposed with several pairs of eyes upon me.

"Next weekend," she reminded me. "Coz and Maggie's solstice party. Anyone who is anyone will be there. Your presence is required. Bring all your friends."

"I don't know..." I wasn't sure if I was ready for family, bandmates and who knew who else.

"Bring the Rat King!" Aggie demanded.

"Yes, what a wonderful idea!" Ruth insisted. "Bring your friend Peter - and what's his partner's name?"

"James," supplied Thom.

"Bring them both. I'll email you the invitation and the address."

"I'm not going to be allowed to say no now, am I?" I sighed, looking down into Aggie's excited eyes.

Thom was exuberant in the car back to the station. "That was such a fantastic weekend. I can't believe... it's just... Look, this has all worked out better than any of us could possibly have imagined, hasn't it?"

I smiled outwardly, but inside, my head swirled with confusion. When Ruth was there, everything seemed so perfect and so utterly obvious, but the moment I was away from her, the impossibility of it all just consumed my head. "Yes," I forced myself to agree, feeling his eyes upon me.

"I want you to come back whenever. You don't need to ask, just come. I know I speak for Ruth, too, when I tell you, you are welcome in our house and in our lives. I want you to think of our house as your home, too."

I closed my eyes, and all I could see was Ruth standing with her back to the huge, warm Aga, smiling with contentment. "Thank you. That's so kind."

He kissed me on the platform, putting his arms around me, not caring who saw, not wanting to let me go as the train came. "I'll see you soon."

 

James stared at me as I walked into the office on Monday, practically strutted to my desk and sat swinging around in my chair, practically glowing with happiness. "That swagger. What happened?" he demanded.

I raised my hand to face and sniffed at my middle finger compulsively. Sometimes, if I closed my eyes, I could still feel Ruth's strong vulva contracting about me, though her scent had long gone. "I joined your club."

"What club?" He poured me a strong cup of coffee.

"I'm a fully fledged queer now," I announced to his shocked face.

"You're what?"

"I'm a gay. I fucked Ruth." I loved saying it, loved the feel of it on my lips.

"Does Thom know?"

"Of course he knows. He was there. He watched. He was fucking me at the time."

"Sorry, Fiona, no, you're not a gay, you're just another bi-curious girl who ate a little pussy for the male gaze. Doesn't count," he teased.

"Fuck you, James," I snorted. "What is this? We, the men, have decided you're not gay enough for our club?"

"A two girls one guy threesome is not a homosexual experience. It's part of the standard straight couple repertoire." I wadded up a ball of paper and threw it at him. "Anyway, I'm glad that you're happy. I've been worried about you."

"Worry no more. Everything's fine now. In fact, you've been summonsed. Come out and meet them. They asked me to ask you and Peter to come to their big solstice party next weekend."

James' ears perked up at that. "What? I don't know that Peter will get the time off from the ballet - but then again, he has a sick day due and... well. I'm fascinated. The chance to see how the other half live? A 'solstice' party with the swinging rock star set out in Glastonbury?"

"Oxfordshire," I corrected.

"Whatever. Will there be an orgy round the bonfire? Or will there just be canapes and that awful ostentatious champagne that rock stars insist on buying?"

"I don't know. You will have to come and find out. But I do know that all the Lambscot Lesbians will be out in force, so I need you as backup."

"Lambscot Lesbians? Fiona, what have you got yourself into? Is there a coven? Will they all strip and dance round the fire naked at midnight?"

"God I hope not," I cringed, thinking of how rampant Chris would get at such an event.

"Like I said, not a real lesbian," he quipped.

"Fuck off." I closed my eyes and thought of the smell of Ruth, the sight of her body, draped naked across the bed, though Thom's head still bobbed between her legs. A twinge of jealousy shook me. No, James was right. Thom had forced himself even into my fantasy life. My feelings for Ruth were real, I knew what they were, even if I lacked the vocabulary to describe them.

By Tuesday, I was a mess. I didn't even go in to work, as the busy period had died down, and there was nothing to do but listings until the New Year. I just lay around, alternately trying to sketch Ruth from memory, and compulsively masturbating like a fiend. Her face danced before my eyes, the sound of her voice filling my empty flat. I texted her to say that James and Peter were coming to the party, but there was no response, no matter how many times I picked up my phone and hit refresh on the inbox. This was absurd, how could I act like this? The phone beeped and I jumped - it was just a text back from her, but I read it like a holy scripture searching for clues as to her state of mind. Oh fuck it. I  clicked on her number and hit dial.

"Fiona," she answered, as if she'd been waiting for my call.

"You got my message?" I asked, stupidly, though I had the text confirmation in my hand.

"Yes, I just sent you the text. I look forward to seeing you at the weekend."

"I can't wait," I insisted.

"Me, neither," she laughed, the edge of flirtatiousness in her voice.

"No, I mean, literally. I can't wait until Saturday to see you again. I can feel you on my fingertips, I can taste you on my tongue, I want to be with you now."

She laughed again, a tinkle like silver bells, the self assured tone of a woman who knew she was loved. "Come out to the farm, Fi, I'm sure we can find a place for you in our bed again."

"No. I want to see you without Thom. I'm selfish, I'm greedy, I want you all to myself, without his head in the way. I want to fuck you, Ruth, and I want you to fuck me. Just the two of us."

A sharp intake of breath. "I don't know that Thom will agree to that."

"He doesn't have to know," I snapped. This was mad, it was against all the rules, but my desire to just be with her was stronger than reason at that moment. "Just come down to London and meet me. By yourself."

I could hear her breathing heavily on the other end of the line, and for a long time, I didn't know if she was even going to answer me. She was trying to think how to put me off, how to tell me to fuck off, but politely and graciously. "Tomorrow afternoon," she finally replied. "I've already said that I'm going Christmas shopping, that I have a few more things to pick up. Fuck... I can't leave the car at the station. Chris will see. I'll have to drive in. I'll drive in and meet you at work. Do you have anywhere we can meet?"

"Come to my flat," I begged, barely believing she was actually agreeing to it.

"No, can't. It will have to be somewhere central. I don't know London at all."

"My club. We can go to my club, in Soho," I told her. Fuck, this was madness. My club was where I'd met Thom to fuck him, before I'd even met Ruth. How could I take her there now? Well, they were nothing if not discreet. It would have to do.

"I'll be there just after noon. We won't have long. A couple of hours at the most. We'll have to make the most of it. But I'll see you tomorrow."

"Thank you, Ruth, thank you," I purred.

"I have to be back at 6, to put dinner on the table for the kids. But until then, I'm yours," she promised. "I have to go now. Goodbye."

I clutched the phone to my chest, barely daring to breathe. She was really going to do it. We were going to be together, just the two of us. I could hardly believe it.


	14. Lying (to Thom)

"What are you doing in today?" demanded James, eyeing me suspiciously when I turned up to work the next morning. "I wasn't expecting to see you here until after Christmas."

"I thought I better put in an appearance and remind the Big Boss of my existence to make sure he signs my contract renewal," I lied.

"He's not even in today. In fact, I'm not sure he'll be back until next year." As I took off my coat and hung it against the wall he looked me up and down, and whistled. "And what the hell are you doing here, dressed like that?"

"Do I look alright?" I fussed, smoothing down my midnight blue silk dress. James had said it flattered my complexion, and I wanted to look perfect for Ruth.

"You look like a million bucks, but I'm sure that's not for my benefit."

"You're right," I told him, and logged on to check my email, resolving not to be drawn on the issue. "It's not for you."

"Something tells me there's a Yorke at the bottom of this. Which one?"

"None of your business."

"Being taken out for a fancy lunch, just before Christmas? If it were dinner, I'd say dead certain it was the husband, but lunch makes me think wife, while the kids are at school. Unless it's actually a shopping trip and he's taking you to DeBeers, in which case, definitely husband. Fiona, your lovelife is too complicated. Which one is it?"

My phone went, the tinkling bell that I had assigned to Ruth's mobile. 'Made good time on the Westway, but I've hit traffic in Notting Hill. I'll be there in half an hour.'

'I can't wait to see you. x'

'Me, too. This is the first time I've ever done anything like this. I feel so bold!'

"That's not his ringtone," James observed.

"Shut up."

"You've done it. You're going lesbian on me."

"I said shut it."

"Maybe they're both coming, and they're going to eat you out at high tea at the Ritz Carlton. Fiona, spill it."

"Yes, that's exactly it," I told him, sticking my tongue out as I opened up my inbox and pretended to work for half an hour.

I waited until James went to the loo, then grabbed my coat and slipped down to the street, standing outside the front of the office building with the smokers, jumping any time someone appeared at the end of the street. Soho was bustling on a busy shopping day, but the side street our building was on did not get many pedestrians.

But finally, a streak of brown hair appeared, stepping into the light, and my heart jumped. Ruth, wearing a long, black, form-fitting coat, practically down to the ground. I ran to her, and swept her up in my arms, pressing my lips against hers, devouring her face with kisses.

"Stop it," she laughed, pushing me away half-heartedly, though her eyes told another story, sparking with light.

"It's Soho. No one cares."

"You'll mess my lipstick."

"You're wearing lipstick?" I drew back to look at her, and noticed that she was wearing make-up, powder, lipstick, mascara, the whole nine yards. I wasn't sure I liked it, it made her somehow look older, less Bohemian, more like a conventional attractive middle aged yummy mummy, but then I decided I didn't care. Ruth was here, in my arms, and together we were hurrying down the street towards my club.

"I thought if I was going on a date, I might as well make the effort... this is a date, right?" she teased.

"More like an assignation," I laughed back.

"And here I thought you were different to all those other girls, but you can't wait to get me alone and get me naked."

I paused, stopping dead in my tracks. What had I been thinking? Of course she was right. I should take her out to lunch, wine and dine her, flatter her, make her feel good about herself. "Ruth, you look absolutely stunning, in make-up, or without, or dressed in satin, or wearing nothing at all. Where can I take you? Where would you like to go? The Ritz? The Savoy?"

Ruth burst into tinkles of laughter. "I thought you were going to take me to a private members club and fuck me senseless. I'm not dressed for the Ritz."

"Come on, then." Threading my arm through hers, I pulled her through the pedestrian passageway and down the side street to my club. I kissed her quickly outside the door, then leant on the doorbell until it opened.

"In a hurry, are we, Fi?" asked Cynthia drolly, reaching for a key. "Christmas rush and all that? Same room, I assume."

"Yes, please," I sighed, wishing she hadn't said that in front of Ruth, but Ruth smiled as if it were all part of the appeal.

"Anything to drink?"

"A bottle of wine, please," I stuttered, but Ruth shook her head.

"Just tea, please. I'm driving."

"Half a bottle of wine for me, then."

"You're such a lush. I worry about how much you drink, Fiona," Ruth chided as we stumbled up the stairs together.

"I'm fine. I'm Welsh, we can handle our booze."

Ruth frowned, but the moment we were inside the room, her face lit up. "God, this is so sordid. I love it. Not even a proper double bed, just a day bed - I bet the window looks out on a blind alley, too."

There was a knock at the door, as a waiter delivered her tea and my wine, then we were alone. I locked the door again and slipped the bolt so we could not be disturbed. Pouring a glass of wine, I took a massive swig, then turned back to her. "Right. Where were we?"

Smiling seductively, Ruth slowly unbuttoned her huge black coat, then let it slip down the floor. Underneath, she was wearing nothing but a wine-coloured bustier, tiny lace knickers, suspenders and black stockings. I stared, my eyes on stalks. It was the last thing I had been expecting from the normally Bohemian, hippyish Ruth. In fact, I wasn't entirely sure I liked it. Long, draping silk dresses in muted Indian colours, sarongs and fair trade Tibetan jackets, that I had expected from Ruth. But this strange, almost whorish get-up? No, it didn't matter. She was still in my room, and half naked and looking at me with palpable desire in her eyes.

"I don't care what you're wearing. I just want you, next to me, with your arms around me," I sighed, moving towards her and wrapping my arms around her, bringing my mouth down on hers, the taste of her, cigarettes and Earl Grey tea, the smell of her, the feel of her skin against mine.

Her hands reached around to my back, and unzipped my dress, sliding it off my shoulders to the floor so I could step out of it. "Christ. Tights. You are such a schoolgirl, Fi."

"Hush." I reached down, fiddling with my boots to untie the laces and stepped out of them, too, grabbing her and pulling her down onto the bed with me. My tights caught against the silk of her stockings, but it still felt amazing, my legs wrapping around hers as I kissed her. My mouth moved lower, down her neck, across her shoulders, then I gingerly lifted her breast out of the bustier's cup to suck at her nipple.

"They're clever, they do this," she told me, unfastening snaps somewhere, so that the silk pushed away and her breasts stood to attention. "Get this off you." She reached around to my back and unfastened my own bra, taking my whole breast in her mouth and biting, hard, at my nipple until it rose in her mouth. I moaned, moving my hands lower, grabbing at her arse as I pulled her towards me, feeling again for that secret moist place between her legs. "You are in a hurry, aren't you?"

"We've only got... what? Three hours?"

"And you haven't even got your tights off, yet." Seizing the waistband, she yanked and peeled them off my like a second skin, grabbing whole handfuls of my arse and kneading roughly. My whole skin was on fire, everywhere she touched me, letting my legs slip open so she could push her hand between. "You're wet already, you little slut," she observed, slipping her finger back and forth along my outer lips, though I desperately bucked at her, trying to get her to push inside. Thom would have been inside me already, and thrusting away, his hands cupped over my pubic bone, rubbing indirectly against my clitoris from outside and in, pushing me towards orgasm with his hips.

No. Why the hell was I thinking of him, when Ruth was lying between my legs, sucking my tongue into her mouth and raking her teeth across it. I moved against her, returning my hands to her arse, rubbing my chest back and forth against hers, watching how our nipples rubbed up against one another with a little frisson of electricity. Did the panties also have a snap? Yes. I found a little clip and unhooked it, and they were off, pushing them out of the way as my fingers found the moist strip of wetness between her thighs.

We grappled for a few minutes, skin against skin, all mouths and fingers and wetness. I needed no more, I was happy just to rub up against her, staring into her eyes like a lovesick puppy, happy just to see the way they sparked every time I brushed my thumb carelessly against her clit, but she sat up abruptly.

"Right. Enough spooning like schoolgirls. Let's do this properly."

"What?" I asked, not sure entirely what she meant. Her head darted lower, and I got the idea that she wanted to eat me out - or maybe I should oblige her? I had no idea of the order. But no, she had climbed off the bed and was digging in the voluminous canvas bag she had brought with her. I squirmed, wishing she would just come back, feeling slightly cold without her body against mine, but watched as she extracted a large, oblong leather box and opened it. Inside there was a strange plastic and metal object, all tied up with a network of leather belts and buckles. "What on earth is that?"

"Don't be naive, Fiona." She held it up so that I could see the main bulk of it, a large double-headed object. "Grab the lubricant, will you?"

I looked about until I saw a small plastic bottle about half full of blue oil, then handed it to her.

"No, don't be silly. On the dildo head."

"Which... one?" One was a short, stubby thing with a wide base, the other was a huge, slightly curved thing like the prow of a ship.

"Both if you like, though you're wet enough already, I think." I squeezed a small dollop onto the huge one, and she lovingly rubbed it down its length. "And mine as well?" she added.

You had got to be kidding me. She intended to stick that massive thing... into me? I shivered as I squeezed another dollop of oil onto the shorter one, but as she turned it on, I grew suddenly more alarmed. Hers wasn't just a static dildo, it actually vibrated. For a moment, she looked at me, licking her lips as she rubbed her own nipples, pulling them up into sharp points, then she stepped into the leather harness and slowly, grinning with anticipation, pushed the vibrating horn up inside her.

"Oh, christ, that feels good," she murmured, giving her nipples another quick tweak before pulling the straps tight and fastening them around her waist and thighs. The massive horn-like cock strained out towards me like a parody of an erection. "Right, my love, now let's see about you," she promised, or threatened, moving towards me.

"That's not going to get inside me," I worried, staring at the thing.

"You'd be surprised. Thom had his whole hand up you the other night."

"Two fingers," I protested as she moved closer towards me, the terrible horn battering against my thighs.

"Lie back and relax," she insisted. "I've had it up me - it's fine. Once you get used to it, in fact, it's amazing. Total G-spot penetration."

I did not want to point out that she had squeezed two children through her vagina, while I had practically lived the life of a nun for the five years before I met Thom, but I lay back and did as she said. "Kiss me," I urged her, feeling for her breasts.

"You are like a little schoolgirl, such an innocent. No wonder Thom gets off on you." I closed my eyes at the thought of Thom, remembering how gentle he could be with me, and felt her lips meet mine. I felt a spasm of desire twitch between my legs, thinking of Thom's cock, of his fingers, of his lips, of all the things he had put inside me, trying to coax an orgasm from me. And then the Thing pushed between my legs.

It hurt. There was no getting around it. I clenched my teeth, then unclenched them, and tried to open my legs wider, but it stuck going in. Ruth didn't notice, her eyes slits, clearly enjoying the friction that my end was transferring to hers. I winced, and reached between my legs, grabbing it and trying to guide it in more smoothly, but even once its progress was unimpeded, it was still not comfortable. Ruth had got a rhythm going, and was thrusting blindly at me, grinding up against me, grabbing my breast and twisting it, but my buzz was gone. I no longer felt aroused or turned on, I just felt stuffed and awkward, unable to move in any direction without the terrible feeling that I was going to tear myself open.

No, this wasn't fair. I had spent so long anticipating this moment, I had to try and get it back. I kissed her, I sucked at her lips, I grabbed a fistful of her breast and rubbed at her nipples, but to no avail. My heart thumped in my chest. I felt gutted and devastated, but I didn't want to cry, I didn't want to let on that I wasn't having as good a time as her, as she was clearly deep in the throes of some mind blowing arousal. When she stilled for a moment, I could feel the tremours of her vibrator, and it felt quite nice, but when she started grinding that monster inside me, my arousal turned to pain.

Finally, she seemed to notice that I wasn't moving with her, I was just bracing my hips against the bed and letting her thrust, and she opened her eyes. "What is it, Fi? You look positively soppy."

"I'm sorry... it..." I stuttered. "It hurts a bit."

"Bad angle, maybe? Ooh, I'm sorry, love. You should have said something. Don't suffer in silence, my little lamb. I'm not a man. Come on, turn over. It might be easier if I went at you from behind. Easier penetration, better angle. Come on." She pulled out, and I exhaled, relieved to finally be able to breathe properly again, glad only to no longer have that terrible thing inside me. "I'll put a bit more lubricant on it, too. You don't seem to be moving properly." Actually, I had been clenching my muscles as tight as I could, to stop it from slipping around inside me. She patted me gently on the rump, then pushed her finger inside me, massaging me gently, pressing against my lips to open them up, and that felt amazing, my bruised lips relaxing and letting her in. But then, abruptly, the monster pushed inside me, nearly knocking me onto my stomach with the force of its thrust.

I grit my teeth and held my breath, relieved that I no longer had to show her my face. It was slightly less painful from behind, but it still was nowhere near pleasurable. All I could do was grab fistfuls of the sheets and hang on, wishing the whole ordeal was over. Ruth was clearly enjoying herself, thrusting and grunting, little sighs of pleasure escaping her lips with every stroke, grabbing chunks of my hair and twining her fingers in them.

"I'm nearly there, I'm nearly there," she muttered, but I remembered from Thom that this meant she might have another ten minutes to go.

At the thought of Thom, I shuddered, wishing it was his gentle hips ploughing me from behind - and suddenly my phone went, with that repeated raindrops sound that meant he was calling me. Without thinking, I reached to answer it.

"What are you doing? Don't answer it," Ruth insisted, not even slowing in her onslaught.

"I have to. It's Thom, he'll just keep ringing until he gets through to me."

"Oh, fuck," she swore, relenting slightly in her thrusts, thought she continued to screw gently against her own dildo.

"Hello?"

"Hey there." His voice was gentle, but still obviously pleased to hear me. "Where are you?"

"I'm at work, where else would I be?"

"Oh, of course. I'm sorry. I thought you might have this week off."

"No. What's up? I can't speak long." Ruth was starting to move more urgently against me, and I clenched my buttocks in pain.

"Oh, just Ruth has gone off shopping in London today. I thought you might have met up, for lunch or something..."

"I haven't seen her," I lied. Well, at that moment, I couldn't see her, as she was behind me, so it was only a half lie.

"Oh, well, I just thought I'd let you know, in case you wanted to get hold of her. She's not really very good with going into London by herself, I thought she might like the company, but her phone's off."

"Probably stuck in traffic, you know what London traffic is like this time of year."

"Poor dear. She hates traffic so much - it makes her so aggressive when it's busy. You wouldn't know to look at her, she had so much pent up aggression in her," he laughed. Actually, considering the pummeling she was giving my posterior I had a pretty good idea.

"Well, I'll keep an eye out for her, but London's a big place. Anyway, I can't speak long. I have to go. I'll see you Saturday, right?"

"Yes, I suppose. Saturday. Or maybe before?"

"I don't know. We'll see."

"OK, I guess. Bye, then," he sighed, sounding so forlorn. I didn't know what to do. If Ruth hadn't been fucking me, I'd have asked him if he was alright, wanted to know what was up, but the longer I talked, the harder she slammed me and it was getting painful again.

"Goodbye, hedgehog."

"Hedgehog!" That cheered him up, as I heard him brighten. "It's been ages since you called me that. Goodbye, Hornbeam. See you Saturday."

I put the phone down, turned it off, then breathed deeply, inhaling and exhaling, trying to take my mind off the pain in my vagina. I could not go on like this for much longer. But Ruth was really into it again, her breaths coming in shorter and shorter bursts, holding onto my hips, digging in her fingers, a tiny "ah!" escaping her lips on every thrust. Please, just fucking come and get it over with, I found myself swearing under my breath.

"Turn over," she barked.

"What?"

"Turn over, I want to look at your amazing fucking tits when I come." I obliged, just wanting to get away from the onslaught for a few moments, but she pushed back inside me and started up again. "Are you anywhere near?"

"Near what?"

"Are you anywhere near fucking coming?" she demanded, her nostrils flaring as her eyes flashed. She was so beautiful that I couldn't actually bring myself to be angry with her.

She had no idea how painful this was for me. She was clueless how little I was enjoying it. But that realisation gave me a kind of release. "I'm nearly there," I lied.

"Fuck yeah, let me see your face when you come." The wild light in her eyes made me realise that this would actually help her get off, herself.

I faked it. I wasn't proud, but I did what I had to do. Months of genuine toe-curling orgasms with Thom had made me realise how I did it, the noises I made, the grimaces I pulled. And so I took a deep breath, and I grit my teeth, and I pretended. I went through the motions and gurned my lips and let out a wail, and I gave the performance of a lifetime, to make Ruth think that I had come. Either way, it did the trick. She grinned as she watched me, then she grabbed hold of my breasts, her face contracted, her stomach tightened, and then she bucked, letting out a stream of little moans, pushing the horrible beast so far up inside me that I thought I was going to split open. And then, finally, she stopped and lay still.

I held her close, touching her hair, laying my face against hers, but still wishing she would take that awful thing out from inside me. But then she looked up and grinned. "See, I told you? It's amazing, this thing. An absolute stunner." Reaching down, she fiddled with the harness, looking for a switch to turn the vibrator off, then gave up and finally, pulled out of me, in order to take it off. I felt nothing but relief, as she pulled it out of herself and switched it off, then finally threw it down on the bed beside me.

I shuddered as she lay back down on top of me. "Is that my blood or yours?"

"Yours, I think. Christ, that isn't very safe. But don't worry, I'll run it through the dishwasher on hot cycle when the kids are at school. That'll sterilise her, she'll be right as rain for next time."

I didn't want to think about next time. I just wanted to lie, holding her, touching her face and playing with her hair. How could it be, that sex with someone I loved so much, could be so absolutely terrible? It didn't seem fair.

"What are you thinking about? You always look so sad after sex. Don't tell me you're one of those women that gets la tristesse after fucking," she teased, kissing my nose gently.

"I can't help it. I love you," I sighed, before I even knew what I was saying.

"Fiona!" Her tone was sharp, but disbelieving, as if I were a naughty dog caught doing something bad on the carpet. "You're aromantic. You don't fall in love."

I closed my eyes and felt my head reel, reaching for my glass of wine. "I didn't say I was in love with you," I lied, again. How many lies could I tell in one day? "I said I loved you."

"Fiona, don't," she sighed, brushing my hair out of my face.

"Don't worry. I won't make any demands of you. I won't ever ask you to leave Thom. I don't want you to leave Thom..."

"Do you love Thom?"

"No." Christ, that was easy. It wasn't even a lie. "I'm very fond of him. I'd never want to hurt him. I enjoy having sex with him. But I don't love him, not at all, the way that I love you."

"This makes things really complicated. You know I can't love you back. It can only ever be sex, between you and me. Just pure sex." She stroked my face tenderly, like she was comforting a child.

"It's already complicated. It doesn't make things any worse." I'd already lied for her. I'd lied to her, in order to save her feelings. I knew, then, I would even go on, having terrible, unsatisfying sex with her, if I thought it would make her happy. "It changes nothing."

"I'm glad. I don't want to change a thing between us. Between any of us." Leaning down, she kissed me softly on the forehead, then kissed me again, harder, on the mouth. For a moment, I started to move against her again, wondering if I could just grab her hand and force it down between my legs, force her to be more gentle with me, but she pulled away after a few seconds. "Is there a shower at all in that little cubicle, or am I going to have to go to Hamleys to buy toys stinking to high heaven of sex?"

"There is, but you'll be lucky if you get more than a trickle out of it." So this was the end of our assignation. She retreated into the bathroom, swore at the taps a few times, then emerged wearing a chic shaped grey merino sweater dress that looked a lot more like the Ruth I knew than the odd prostitute's getup she had arrived in.

"There. My hair's a nightmare, but it will have to do." She paused to survey me, still lying on the bed. "Christ, Fiona, you are such a perfect odalisque lying there, I could paint you right now. But are you going to get dressed and come to Hamley's with me, or are you going to lie there all afternoon?"

"Sorry." I retrieved my clothes and reluctantly dressed, feeling like the lovesick schoolgirl she had accused me of being. This brave new world of adults and love affairs, I wasn't sure I liked it. Still, we managed to put on the face of being a pair of businesswomen just stopped in for a private chat as we tumbled back down the stairs. I handed the key back to Cynthia with a nod. "We're done for the afternoon," I told her. "But I'm sure we'll be back another week."

"Right you are," Cynthia agreed and signed me out, without even the hint of a smile.

"I love this place!" Ruth exclaimed as soon as we were outside. "From the outside, it looks so utterly nondescript, you wouldn't even notice it to walk by in the street, but inside, a world of completely discreet filth. I love it! How do you become a member here?"

My heart leapt. This was something I could do for Ruth. "You have to have two members vouch for you, provide references, and there's a fee, of course..."

"Chris would absolutely love this place. She would just soak her knickers over it, it's such a lesbian version of the famous five, secret meetings in the clubhouse..."

My beautiful dream of a private place for just Ruth and I evaporated, blown away in the harsh light of day as I threaded my arm through hers and pulled her down the street before she could destroy every one of my illusions.


	15. Lying (to Ruth)

On the outside, we must have just looked like two middle aged women, shopping for their children at a toyshop. But inside, I was throbbing with conflicting desires. I still hurt, my vulva was aching, but I had decided that I enjoyed the pain, in a weird fetishy sort of way. It meant that I could survive, whatever it was that Ruth dished out, I could take it, and still love her. But Ruth was in mother mode again, fussing over things for her children, and as fond as I was of her family, it was something I could never join in with. Children were a mystery to me, whatever toys they played with went straight over my head. And Thom...

"We'll tell him that we met up to go shopping," she insisted. "That way we won't get caught out if he realises that we've seen each other."

I was about to open my mouth and ask what happened to honesty, what happened to _it wasn't the infidelity that destroyed relationships, but the lying_?  But then I remembered that I had lied as much as she had, and closed my mouth again, and simply agreed. "I'll try to remember that."  I felt torn up inside, like I no longer knew which way was up any more.

"Oh, Fi, what has got into you?" Ruth turned around and fixed me with a concerned stare. "You're not mooning, are you? It's very sweet, dear, and quite, quite flattering, but I can't stand it when people moon over me."

"I'm not mooning over anyone," I insisted. "I just..." But she had already turned away, her attention distracted by a wall of glittering masks, animals and birds and creatures all painted and shining, ringed with feathers or bits of fur.

"Just look at these! Aren't they fun? These would be absolutely perfect for the Solstice party. What a stroke of luck. What do you think?" She picked up the face of an orange cat and placed it over her own, and instantly she was transformed.

"What for?"

"The Solstice party." I looked at her blankly. "Fi, did you not read the invitation I forwarded you? Honestly, you're even more scatteredbrained than Thom, I swear. It's a costume party. Fancy dress, masks, tops hats, feathers, ragged velvet and old fashioned clothes - we dress up like animals and spirits of the Victorian dead and parade about the village and up the hill to light a bonfire on the Beacon."

"Sounds very pagan."

"Of course it's pagan. Christmas is a pagan festival, after all." She found a mirror and admired her half-animal reflection in it. "No, I don't think so. There's something a bit twee about the cat. I need something wilder."

Bending down, I found a slightly terrifying but really rather sexy fox mask, all rimmed with feathery ginger down. "Try this one, Ruth." She put it on, and somehow looked totally different and exactly the same, the pointed nose and curious expression completely suiting her. "That's the one for you."

She made a face at herself in the mirror, showing all her teeth in pearly rows, looking as cunning as the animal she was pretending to be. "You're absolutely right. It's perfect. What about you, Fi?"

"I don't know. I don't really like fancy dress. Perhaps I'll be a pig," I sighed, picking up a pink mask and holding it to my face. "A pig or a doormouse or something."

"No, I don't think so." She stopped and looked at me carefully. It felt totally bizarre to be studied so closely by a fox. "I know what you are. The ugly duckling. But you are blossoming." Looking through the racks, she found a huge, sparkling white mask, with feathery wings on either side. "The swan."

"I couldn't." Even as I put it on, I fell in love with the thing, all white and silver and stately beauty that made me feel utterly unlike myself.

"It's absolutely perfect, Fiona. Wear a long, white dress - and I've got a big, white cloak with a hood that you can borrow. It'll be perfect!"

We found two smaller ones, a stoat and a rat, for the children, but neither of us could agree on what to get for Thom. "A hedgehog," I insisted, but there seemed to be no such thing in the display.

"A hare?" Ruth suggested.

"Never. His legs are too short to be a hare."

Ruth snickered with amusement, then picked up a glittery black thing with a long, pointed beak. "Let's just get him this strange, black one with the crow feathers on it. It looks suitably sinister for him, and he can decide what he is."

I walked her back to the car, with the masks in boxes, and two bags full of Christmas shopping for her children, smiling bravely at her and trying to keep a positive face. There really was no reason for me to feel so uneasy and disquieted inside. I was getting everything that I wanted, wasn't I? It wasn't like I'd been expecting public displays of affection and hand-holding in the street, but it seemed so strange to be shopping with her so calmly, when only a few hours earlier, she'd wrecked such havoc on my body and my heart.

"I'll see you Saturday, right?" she chirped, kissing me breezily on the cheek, her suspicious side-eye noting that the parking garage attendant was watching us.

"Saturday, yes," I replied, even as she reached under my coat and quickly copped a quick squeeze of my breast, tweaking my nipple and making me throb inside. So we were still lovers. And then, with a jaunty wave, she climbed into the silver car and drove away, back to Oxford and her family, leaving me feeling utterly washed out and confused.

 

I didn't go into work the next day. I didn't really feel like crowing about my conquest to James, and I knew he would read it on my face. Instead, I sent him an email asking him if everything was quiet and telling him to ring if there were any major crises. Oh, and as an addendum, I told him I'd just found out that the party on Saturday was fancy dress.

I know it's fancy dress, he emailed back. It was in the invitation I'd forwarded him. Christ, was I always the last to know everything? But he reported that it was quiet as the grave and I might as well stay home and not bother getting out of my PJs. I didn't do much. I answered personal email I'd been putting off for ages, once a year updates to various members of my family I only spoke to at Christmas, old school friends I'd fallen out of touch with. But still, I felt restless, fretting, though I didn't quite know what I was fretting for.

I went into the bathroom and stripped, intending to take a shower, but for a long time, I stood and just stared at myself in the mirror, the bruises of Ruth's casual love-making still livid across my stomach and down my thighs. If this was love, why did it have to hurt so much? Was this even love? Fuck, if it wasn't, why couldn't it be? Why did my body rebel against her when my heart cried out for her so badly?

Why couldn't I just take the easy way out? Why couldn't I be that old cliche, that I wasn't actually asexual, I was just a completely closeted homosexual? Why couldn't love work the way it was supposed to? Stepping into the water, I scrubbed away whatever physical evidence was left of Ruth, but the bruises went all the way to my heart. I felt bruised inside as I stepped out of the shower, wrapped myself in towels and padded back to the bedroom.

My phone dinged, the soft sound of raindrops. I might still be fretting, but no, that was definitely not what I was fretting for. I picked up the phone and read the text from Thom. 'i love the masks. ruth said you helped choose them. can't wait to see what yours looks like.'

'Just the ugly duckling.'

'ugly ducklings always grow into swans. r u at work today?'

'no. nothing to do.'

'r u not at work tomorrow, either, then?'

'No. Probably not for the rest of the year. The office is shut between Xmas and New Years anyway.'

'have you thought where u'll be spending xmas?'

'No. Probably just stay in with a microwave dinner.'

'ur welcome to come and spend it with us if u like.'

I stared at the phone, wondering how to react. My first instinct was that I would love to come. Wrapped up in the warmth of their family, a chestnut roast in the Aga, all sitting together in their cosy kitchen... it was like some kind of dream. But no, it was absurd. What the hell was I doing, ditching my own family to go imposing on someone else's? They had to have cousins, grandparents, friends, family, who would all have a greater claim on their time than I did. And yet, my heart still ached to be there.

'Have you asked Ruth if that's alright?'

'ruth suggested it in the first place.'

'I don't know. Your kids, your family, surely your house will be full of people?'

'aren't u family now?'

'I meant, like, your parents - your brother and his kids. How will you explain me to them?'

'we can set u up in the guest bedroom again if it makes u more comfortable.'

'I don't know, Thom, I just don't know.' I closed my eyes as I turned my phone off and threw it on the bed before he could confuse me any further. Should I do it? My heart told me yes, my head told me no. I couldn't just impose myself into their intimate life, in the name of my own selfish desires. But what if they desired me to be there, too? When had this all got so complicated? How had I found myself having to deal with all those annoying things - children, in-laws, schedules - that I had refused to deal with, point blank, for my entire life? How had I found myself in a _relationship_?

 

I had intended to stay in bed the entire next day, but, upon noticing the fridge was bare, I realised I had to go out. I took a shower and changed for the first time since getting home, then set out on a brief shopping trip. When I returned, I saw that Thom had been ringing my phone again, but he hadn't left a message. Probably bothering me about Christmas again. I just didn't know. I wanted to see Ruth, desperately, wanted to spend as much time with her as I could, but I couldn't handle the rest of it. I had decided that I would see how the Solstice party went, and play it by ear from there. Surely one more or less single woman banging about the house didn't make that much of a difference, especially if they planned on simply absorbing me into their marital bed. I made a pot of tea and went back to bed with a computer game. It was the only thing that shut off my mind, stopping me from obsessively thinking about Ruth, blotting it all out by senselessly killing monsters on an alien world.

The doorbell surprised me when it went off, making me jump, literally, and shaking me out of bed. I wasn't expecting anyone. Then again, maybe it was the postman, with some delivery of a Christmas gift from one of my family I'd been fobbing off. The doorbell went again, insistent, like someone was leaning on it.

"Alright, alright," I told it, wrapping a cardigan around me as I stepped outside and went to the gate to sign for whatever it was. But there was no postman. It was only Thom, leaning against my gate, wrapped in a black leather jacket and a pair of mirrored shades. "What the hell are you doing here?"

He slipped inside the gate and slammed it behind him, seizing me around the waist and pulling me towards him, reaching up to crush his mouth against mine. For a moment, I stood, stunned, too surprised to respond, then pushed him roughly off me.

"Knock it off, have you forgotten I have neighbours?" I snapped. I wanted to get rid of him, but instead I found myself leading him inside.

Once inside, he pulled off his shades and tossed them on the table, then pushed me up against the wall, wrapping his hands around the back of my neck and pulling me towards him, kissing me roughly, urgently, before pulling back and studying me carefully. "I'm here to remind you, whose lover you are, because I think you've forgotten." For a moment, my head reeled, and I wondered how much he knew - if Ruth had told him of our tryst. "It was wrong, mixing you all up with my family. I thought it would be so seductive, to you, our lovely home, but I forgot. You hate all that. You want your independence, don't you? Well, I'm here. To give it to you, how you want. Just to fuck you and go. Whatever you want. It's yours."

I pushed him off me, breathing a sigh of relief as I realised that we'd not been caught. He caught me by the hand and tried to pull me through into the bedroom. "No, stop it," I snarled, shoving him back, starting to get really pissed off at him.

"How do you want it, then? Tell me." He caught me off balance, pulling me down onto the bed and trying to get his leg up over me.

I suddenly stopped caring and just started wrestling him back, trying to push him off me and down onto the mattress. God, it felt good, just rolling around with him. I had forgotten, his wiry muscles barely strong enough to hold me, the pair of us tussling and fighting. Finally, I got the upper hand and rolled him back onto the bed, holding him down by the shoulders, staring down into his uneven blue gaze, looking back at me, smoldering with desire. I laughed and brought my mouth down on his, kissing him roughly, sucking his tongue into my mouth, then letting him go, feeling his arms encircle my waist, reaching up under my shirt. He still knew how to turn me on, just the touch of his fingers on my skin, the way he looked at me as if he were undressing me with his eyes.

"Don't stop," he said quietly, as I pulled away. "I want you to fight me."

"What."

"Do it rough. Fight me back." I reached out and actually slapped him, not very hard, but enough to make a sound. He closed his eyes and shivered, then opened them again. "Do it again. Harder."

I hit him again, and suddenly he uncoiled like a spring, leaping up and snatching at my hand, pinning it down as he tried to get his other arm around me to twist me to the bed. Half playing, half serious, I fought back, bringing my legs up and pushing him away from me. He was grabbing at my jeans, trying to pull them off me, grappling with the belt, even as I was still trying to shove him away. He snatched at my shirt, and one of the buttons popped off as he tore at it, clawing it away from me, then biting at my breasts. I was breathing heavily, and not just from the exertion, grabbing back at him, trying to get a grip with my fingernails. His mouth found mine again and I bit at his lips, bucking at him as he managed to pull my jeans and my knickers off, tossing them in a crumpled heap on the floor. And then he was tugging at his own jeans as the two of us wrestled. Still playing along, I cuffed the side of his head and tried to roll away, but he grabbed at me and pulled me back, rolling me bodily beneath him, pushing my thighs apart.

I wanted him. I absolutely ached for him, wanting his hands on me, wanting his cock inside me, kissing him again and again, rough, biting kisses, as I grabbed hold of his arse and pulled him between my legs, guiding him into me. I kissed his face, kissed his eyelids, ran my teeth along his cheekbones, wanting to gnaw at him like a bone, bite him so hard I'd make him bleed. He laughed aloud, reaching underneath me and picking me bodily off the bed and shifting me about until he found an angle he liked, then he grabbed a fistful of breast and coaxed my nipples to life. Clinging to him, I rubbed up against him, feeling the pleasure building between my legs, cursing my traitorous clitoris for responding to him the way it had utterly failed to respond to Ruth.

"Try it from behind," I insisted, shifting around in his arms, pushing him off me, then pulling him close again, grabbing at his cock and sliding it into me from behind. Without even asking, his hands reached round the front of me, his thumb sliding into place above my clit, stroking firmly in time with my thrusts as I pushed myself back against him. Sex with him was so easy, so instinctive, I never had to ask anything of him a second time. Why couldn't sex with Ruth be like this? Or failing that, why couldn't I love him? He sat up, pulling me with him, so that we were both on our knees, his other hand cradling my breasts as he licked softly at my earlobe, nibbling slowly down my neck until all my worries drained out of me. Between my legs, that slow burning was building again, my orgasm forming around the tip of his cock. It would be so easy to just lie back and let it wash over me, but I tightened myself around him, trying to make him come.

"Don't do that," he moaned. "I want to last this time."

"I want you to come as quickly as I do. We can do it again later."

He giggled slightly, then relaxed and let himself give in to it, even as I went in search of my own orgasm, pulling it out of him with all the pent up frustration of the past couple of days. Christ, yes, there it was, spinning out of control and getting away from me, running up my back so strong it made me shiver and quake, feeling it down, even in the tips of my toes. His hands, his mouth, his cock, whatever he did with them, it was magic. "Oh, Fi," he grunted, then his breaths started to pant, that snuffling sound I had grown to anticipate, clenching myself tightly around him as I felt him spurt. "You get better at this every time," he told me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me against him tightly, resting his sharp little chin on my shoulder, kissing my cheek again and again. "I try to play with myself, thinking about what it's going to be like, being with you, but every time I'm with you, it's always better and better than I could ever have imagined."

I shifted off him, feeling a trail of semen run down my leg. Fuck, we had got to stop being so careless with the condoms. But the warmth of his body was too seductive against me as I settled back into the pillows, pulling him down next to me and drawing the blankets over us. Feeling tender now, I kissed his face softly, then bent down to kiss the angry red welts from my fingernails, all across his back. "Did I do that to you? I'm so sorry, I didn't realise I did it so hard..."

"Don't worry, I loved it." He traced the bruises across my stomach and down my legs with his fingertips. I could no longer tell which bruises came from him, and which were from Ruth. He smiled, then kissed my nose, his arms still tight around me. "I'm sorry, I need to stop trying to make you into someone you're not. Forget the thing with Christmas, I'm sorry I asked, I didn't mean to put you on the spot. You don't have to do anything you don't want to, not for me."

"I want to," I told him, sighing deeply. "It's just, I'm not good with..."

"I know." He kissed my mouth, stopping me from saying anything more. "I forget, because I care about you so much, that you're not like me. That you don't do emotions - wait, no. It's not that you don't, it's that you can't."

"I don't know about that." I don't know what devil made me say it. Perhaps I felt so overwhelmed in his arms, my body still glowing in the afterburn of orgasm, so twisted about by the past few days, that I wanted to spill it all out, like an ugly stain over my dirty blankets.

"What do you mean, Fi?" He kissed my forehead gently, his breath catching in his throat.

"I may just have found out too late - I think I can fall in love. I think I may already have done so. I'm so sorry." I was on the verge of tears, trying hard not to cry, but Thom squeezed me so hard I thought I might die, pressing his lips against my face and again.

"Fi, it's alright." His voice sounded as if it was about to break into sobs, but instead he actually started to laugh.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"No, don't apologise, Fi, it's alright." He drew back slightly, looking back and forth between my eyes with a smile, his eyes huge things. "I love you, too. God, I love you so much, it's a relief to finally be able to say it." He kissed me again and again. "I think I've loved you from the first night I met you. I knew, if I persisted, if I gave you what you needed, you might grow to..."

"But... but..." I protested, barely able to form the words, feeling my heart sinking in my chest. Finally, I spat out the name, my talisman, my token, my heart. "Ruth."

He shook his head slowly. "She doesn't have to know. We don't have to tell her. Fuck it, I don't care. Fiona, I love you and I want to be with you. If you want to come and live with me and Ruth - or - I don't care. I would give it all away for you. My wife, my house, my family... hell, my children. I would give them up, too. Let my life collapse about my ears. I don't care. I love you and I want to be with you."

I felt as if I'd been punched in the chest. I didn't want it. I didn't want any of it. My mind reeled at the idea - how on earth could he give up the goddess that was Ruth, for me? It made me sick to even think of it, and I started to hate him, just a little. He had everything - everyone - that I had ever wanted, and he was just prepared to throw it all away? Placing my hand over his mouth, I pulled myself together and forced myself to speak.

"Thom, listen to me. You don't mean any of that."

"I do. I mean every word." He kissed my fingertips even as I tried to stop him from speaking. "I love you so much."

"I'm so sorry, Thom. It's not you that I'm in love with."

His face crumpled with pain as his eyes flashed with jealousy. "What? Who? Who on earth have you even been seeing?" He grabbed me roughly and shook me, but this time he was not playing.

"I'm in love with Ruth."

"No." The expression on his face was like a knife in my gut. Even if I didn't love him, I hated to see him in so much pain. Pulling away from me, he rolled over and wrapped himself in a ball, wadding up his hands and pushing the balls of his palms into his eye sockets. "No. You can't. You can't do this to me."

"I'm sorry. I didn't choose to do it, Thom. If I could have chosen to fall in love with anyone in the world, she would have been the last person." Moving towards him, I wrapped my arms around him, trying to untangle him from himself. "But... all this time, I've thought it was me, that was wrong. That I couldn't fall in love. That I was somehow deficient, not right, that my emotions just didn't work properly. But now I know. All along, I was trying to fall in love with the wrong people. I just don't fit, with men. I don't connect. It's like trying to stick a plug into the wrong kind of socket. It doesn't work. But with Ruth... with Ruth, I fit."

"She doesn't love you, you know." His voice was tiny, bereft, so much unrequited anguish packed into a single word.

"I know." I felt the despair in the pit of my stomach at how easily I said that.

"It's just like a game for her. She only wants sex..."

"I know," I interrupted. "If it's any consolation, sex between us was an absolute disaster."

It was the wrong thing to say. His eyes flashed with rage as he pushed me off him and climbed out of bed, staring down at me in outrage. "You had _sex_ , with my _wife_ , when I wasn't there?"

Shit. There was that secret out of the bag. "Does Ruth know that you're here? Right now?"

He closed his eyes, and started to actually physically shake. Was he laughing? "No." His voice was ragged, raw, as I realised that his chest was heaving with tears, not laughter. "Christ, have we actually started lying to each other? Over _you_? How have you done this to us?"

"Look, please," I begged, taking him by the hands and trying to pull him back into bed, back into my embrace. I kissed his shoulder gently, though he turned his face away when I came near. "Whatever you want, I will do it. Do you want me to carry on being your sexual plaything? Fine, I'll do it. I love fucking you. I love the way you make my body feel. If you want me to move in with you, sleep in your bed, the three of us together..."

"How?" he snarled. "How can you expect me to just let you do that... knowing that you love my wife, and you don't love me?"

"I don't see what difference it makes. You wanted me to come and be with you before, when you thought I didn't love either of you. What does it matter if I go on sleeping with both of you, if I love one of you but not the other?"

"Because I'm the one you don't love. Because I'm yours, but you're not mine."

"Thom." I kissed his shoulders, kissed the red welts on his back, though he still would not even look at me. "I am yours. My body is yours, as it always has been. Why are you so angry that you don't have my heart? That's never changed."

"Because you love _her_."

I sat up, and wrapped my arms all around him, clutching him close against me, laying my head against the side of his, kissing his cheek for want of his lips. "Come on, lie back down with me. Let me kiss you. Let me suck your dick, let me ride on you, come on," I urged, reaching down and tentatively touching his cock, knowing that I could probably coax it back to life.

"Please stop."

"You don't mean that."

He sighed deeply, tears creeping into his voice. "No, I don't. But please, stop anyway. Leave me my pride, at least."

Leaving his cock alone, I pulled him back into bed, feeling no resistance this time as I encircled him with my arms, like a child, smoothing his hair, pulling out the snarls in it with my fingers. "Tell me what to do. Tell me how to fix this."

He murmured something that sounded awfully like "Love me."

"Do you want me to lie? Would that make you feel better?"

"Yes," he insisted, then slowly shook his head. "No."

The tears came like a sudden rainstorm, shaking him with their violence as he heaved beside me, great sobbing bursts of tears as the water ran down his face. I didn't know what to do, alternately holding him and stroking his hair, then kissing his forehead softly. And as quickly as a rainstorm, it seemed to clear, leaving him just lying, collapsed in a ball beside me. Reaching my head down, I tried to kiss away the moisture from his face, but he shook me off and rubbed his eyes with his hands.

"It's fucking embarrassing, crying like this. I can't believe I let you see me like this."

"It's alright, I don't mind."

"If you had a heart, you'd mind."

I closed my eyes, feeling the hurt burn. He'd aimed that one, and it had hit its mark. "Alright, I deserved that. But I'm not as heartless as you seem to think. I didn't choose which way my heart bends."

"Isn't this a fucking mess? No one's heart seems to bend the same way as their bloody genitals. I love you, but you don't love me back, you only give me sex. You love Ruth, but she doesn't love you back, she will only ever give you sex. Ruth loves me passionately, and I actually love her back - but she's physically revolted when I put my dick anywhere near her. What do we do?"

"I don't know. There is no answer."

Lying down next to him, I wrapped my arms and legs around him, but this time he did not push me away, letting me hold him like a child. We didn't talk, we didn't move, we just lay together as the sky got dark outside. I don't know that either of us would have moved had a phone not started ringing.

"Is that yours?" I asked.

"Don't answer it. I don't want to talk to fucking anyone."

I lay still until it stopped ringing, then a few minutes later, it pinged with a voicemail. And then my phone started ringing.

"Don't answer that."

Resisting the urge to fling _fuck you_ back at him, I picked it up, worried that it was someone from work. "Fiona." My heart leapt at the sound of her voice.

"Ruth."

Thom's face crumpled with pain as he rolled away from me.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Fi. Thom hasn't turned up at school to pick the kids up, and there's no answer at the studio. He's not with you, is he?"

"What, Thom, here?" I asked aloud, looking down at him purposefully, but he shook his head furiously. I'd had enough of this. "Look, I'm not lying to either of you, or for either of you any more. He's here, but he's shaking his head like he doesn't want to talk to you."

"Give me the phone," Thom snapped.

"I don't care if he's with you," Ruth explained, the edge of annoyance creeping into her voice. "But I do need to know if I'm going to have to go down and pick the kids up. So thank you, and I will not expect him back until tomorrow." The phone went dead in my hands, even though I'd wanted her to stay on the line, desperate to prolong any contact with her.

"Sorry, she's hung up. She just wanted to know whose turn it was to pick up the kids."

"Fuck," he swore, balling up his hands into fists and rubbing his eyes. "I had completely forgotten. I never forget. Fucking hell, what are you doing to my life?"

"I didn't ask you to come down here."

"Fine, I'll go." He sat up, suddenly looking very small and rather old and tired, the bags under his eyes puffy from crying. Casting about, he looked for his clothes, picking up his shirt off the floor and pulling it over his head.

"Are you alright to drive?"

"I haven't had a drop to drink, though maybe that's the problem."

"Thom..." He looked so pathetic that I caught him, pulling his head against my stomach and just holding him there for a moment, feeling him go limp in my arms. "I'm sorry. I never meant to change anything."

He lay against me for a few minutes, leaving a slight wet patch on my belly, then pushed me away. "I've got to drive home. There will be a massive row, I know it, and it's best to just get it over with."

"I'm sorry," I repeated like a mantra.

"You're right, though. You haven't done anything wrong." He pulled his boots on, kissed me softly, then fled from my flat.


	16. Misrule

I spent the next day or so in an utter daze, continually picking up my phone and staring at it, wondering whether I should call Thom or call Ruth, then panicking, chickening out, or otherwise just putting it down again. The party beckoned like an unwelcome guest, and I lost my nerve about a dozen times.

I texted James to try and sound him out. 'Would you really hate me if I asked if we could just not go to the Solstice Party?'

'Yes. Yes I would hate you. Peter's booked the time off work and everything. And we would look ridiculous if we turned up without you.'

'Sorry, sorry, of course. I'm just getting cold feet.'

'You better not. At least not until I've had a chance to check out the situation.'

I sighed and tossed the phone back down on my bed, then picked it up and sent a text to Thom. 'Are you alright? x'

It was some time before he replied. 'yes. we had a massive row, but it's blown over. we pick up and we muddle thru like we always do.'

'Are you still OK with my coming to the party?'

'yes. i don't care. i love u, i want to c u.'

Well, it looked like there was no getting out of it. Remembering that I still had to assemble my costume, I went digging through the million charity shops of Streatham until I found a long white dress that might once have been a wedding dress of some kind, or at least a bridesmaid's outfit. I took it home and slashed at the hem, cutting it to a decent length and shredding the skirt into ribbons, sewing on the extra layer of cut off material to make it look like layers and layers of feathers. A long string of fake pearls, and that would have to do.

On the morning of the party, I woke with the edge of an upset stomach, but dismissed it as sheer nerves. Even if I was ill, there was no way that I could back out gracefully now, no one would believe that I was actually sick. So instead I washed my unruly hair and blow dried it into a sleek shining mass. I ate a good solid brunch, then put on my costume, and tied the mask over my face. I hardly looked like myself, some odd ghost with my mouth and my black eyes looking through the slits in the mask. Soon enough there was a jaunty hoot outside, and I saw James' car parked outside my house.

Grabbing my overnight bag with a change of clothes, and throwing a dark velvet coat over the top, I made my grand entrance at the gate to show off my outfit to James and Peter. James wolf-whistled and Peter clapped, but I looked at them and complained "But where are your outfits?"

"You'll see," Peter assured me.

"No, show me now." With a sigh, he climbed out and walked around to the boot, delicately opening the box inside to reveal the King Rat's mask. "Oh my god, you brought it - are you allowed to do that?"

"Don't worry, it's only the replica that I wore for rehearsals. My understudy has the real one tonight."

"What's James wearing?" I demanded, and Peter showed me a top hat and mask. "But that's not enough."

"Oh - have you not seen. Come on, Jamie, step out of the car."

Grumbling, Jamie switched off the ignition, opened the door and climbed out, revealing himself to be dressed in a kilt and a formal, old-fashioned tuxedo jacket.

"Wow. You two are going to look... amazing." Forcing my face into a grin, I tried to turn my nervous anticipation into excitement. With my two handsome friends at my side, well, the hell with both Thom and Ruth. I didn't need either of them.

The drive from Streatham was long, even taking a "short-cut" down the A23 to the M25 that turned out to add an extra half hour from the usual route around the South Circular. But with James and Peter for company, fiddling with the radio and providing a running chatter. James was complaining about his job, as usual, but I just rolled my eyes and listened to the office gossip at a remove. they still had not extended my contract, despite the promises, and I was growing slightly annoyed at the dithering.

"Have you heard the latest rumour going around?"

"Of course I haven't, I haven't been in all week, I've just been chasing poets from my bedroom," I snorted.

"Look, nothing is confirmed yet, nothing is put in writing, but I have heard, from quite high up, that there is a very good chance..." He looked over at Peter and bit his lip with excitement. "...that there might be a rebranding and a corporate reshuffle..."

"Oh god, not another one. I only got brought in as the result of a 'rebranding and corporate shuffle' - it means nothing."

"No, the rumour is that we might get consolidated with the head office and..." His voice crept up with excitement. "...moved to New York!"

"New York?" I gasped, seeing my contract suddenly evaporating before my eyes and another empty year of chasing after freelance contracts.

"Yes! New York City, isn't that the most amazing thing?" James was practically vibrating with excitement. "I've been over there before. They have a lush office, right on Broadway, with a huge data centre down in the basement. If I could get them to sponsor me for a green card... bloody hell, a couple of years working in New York City, get a flat on Christopher Street, that would be the life, for us."

"What about you, Peter, what would you do if James moved to New York?" I stuttered, still trying to work out how firm this move was. Big Boss had mentioned absolutely nothing about it to me, which clearly meant that I would not be going with them.

"I've been looking at troupes in New York - there are several, and very well funded ones. The Metropolitan Ballet, the Alvin Ailey Company - I have friends in both, who are very excited at the prospect of my coming to work with them - in fact, I might move up to dancing principal roles." He glanced back at James with the same muted excitement.

"New York," I repeated. I knew no one in the city. I'd only ever been there once, on an interview junket that had been one of the most stressful experiences of my life. The noise, the smell, the size of everything on Manhattan had disoriented and unnerved me. I hated it, and wanted only to leave.

"Won't it be exciting?" James burbled.

"I don't know, they've said nothing about keeping me on," I reminded him.

"Don't be ridiculous, of course they will."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," I sighed, despair starting to creep into my voice.

"Don't be so miserable, Fi. It's Christmas, after all. Look, I shouldn't have brought it up, since nothing is set in stone yet. It's just... it would be so amazing if it happened..."

I lapsed back into silence, staring at the scenery slipping by outside the window. Would I even go, if my contract was extended and I was asked to relocate to New York with them? I hated London; I had no real attachment to the place. I could rent my flat out, well, if I cleaned it up a bit first and put all my rubbish into storage. My family? To be honest, I never saw them anyway. Flintshire to London might as well be the moon, as far as they were concerned, so why would the States be any different? I had friends, but they all worked the same crazy freelance life that I did - most of my contacts with them were through email and Facebook anyway.

But Ruth, and Thom. My first thought was, I was ashamed to admit, that it would be so easy to just slip out of both their lives and never see either of them ever again. And then my gut wrenched at the thought of that. To never bathe in the warmth of that kitchen again. To never see Ruth's mouth twist up in that beguiling smile. To never feel Thom's cock harden between my legs. No matter how badly things had got fucked up between us, I just couldn't bear to think of it.

"I know this sounds stupid, James, but I don't want to leave Thom and Ruth. Don't laugh at me, don't tell me I'm a fucking idiot, but I just can't let go of that dream, that big house with the warm kitchen, tucked up against the downs."

"Is it the man you're in love with, or the house?" James teased.

"I don't know. The whole thing. Just all of it. I don't mean the lifestyle, I mean them. Just everything about them. You'll see when you meet them properly, when you spend time with them. I just want to be close to them."

"Hang on, do we turn off at exit 7, 8 or 9 on the M40?" James demanded abruptly. It was always amazing to me, how it took over an hour to get out of London, and then about half an hour to speed across country to Oxford.

"None of them. You want to get off at exit 11, then make your way down towards Chipping Norton," I directed, reading off the email.

"Chipping Norton, Jesus, your rock stars are loaded, aren't they?"

"I don't know, this is the bassist's house, I haven't been there before."

"Well, if he lives in the Cotswolds, he's richer than god."

I looked outside, watching the rolling farmland slide by as the car climbed, the sun sinking down towards the downs of the Cotswolds. What if I didn't go to New York, what if I lied to Thom, told him I loved him, and moved in with them, living their rock star life, and slowly learned to act like I loved him, even if I never learned to feel it, just to be near Ruth? And then I instantly felt guilty for even thinking it.

We pulled off the main road onto a B-road, then through another chocolate box village with the unlikely name of Steeple Redjack, turning off onto a lane, driving down through lush gardens towards a modernist palace, all glass walls and Frank Lloyd Wright angles. These rock stars, they certainly loved their rock star houses. But as we pulled up towards the house and turned into a large graveled area that seemed to pass as a parking lot, I saw out of the corner of my eye, a nightmare creature. When I glanced back it was gone, but I still felt odd, putting my own mask back on as I climbed out of the car.

"This is weird. I don't know any of them - though obviously I know what they look like," I warned, staring at the huge bonfire laid in the middle of the grounds. At that moment, I wished Thom were with me, that I'd gone with the family, instead of my friends.

"Never mind. The two of us are here, you know us," Peter assured me, opening the boot of the car to pull out his King Rat mask, all glittering teeth and gold crown. As soon as it was over his head, although I could see his soft brown eyes beneath the mask, it was as if the man I knew had vanished, replaced by a terrible demon.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the nightmare creature again. I whirled to confront it, and saw, standing in front of me, something out of the depths of my worst dreams. If I didn't hear the crunch of its hooves on gravel, I would have dismissed it as a phantom - but no, there was a terrifying beast, about six foot tall, all covered in feathers or wings or mossy bark, but its face was the skull of a horse, its eye sockets glowing with an unearthly blue light. Slowly, it opened its mouth, showing its massive teeth, then chomped them shut with a snap like the gates of hell.

Behind me, there was a battle cry, as King Rat drew his sword and leapt forward, charging the creature, and they danced about in a slow circle, the Rat King pretending to stab at the Nightmare Horse as it snapped its terrible teeth at him. And then, suddenly, there was laughter, giggling ringing out from inside the creature's ragged cloak.

"Wait, wait, I can't actually see, hang on." Hands appeared from beneath the cloak and grabbed hold of the horse skull, pulling it off and pushing it out of the way, until a small, dark-haired man appeared in the gap. "You're bloody good, you are," he told Peter, tucking the horse skull under one arm as he extended the other to shake hands. "Is that a real sword? Well done!"

Peter removed the rat mask with a deep, rolling laugh and shook the man's hand. "No, it's a stage rapier. If you stab someone with it - watch..." Pushing it against his hand, he showed how the blade collapsed into the hilt.

"That is great, I want one of those." He observed it carefully, then suddenly snapped back to attention. "I'm sorry, I'm your host, Coz. Coz Greenwood. Welcome, welcome, I love your costumes."

"I'm Peter Oboteye, and this is my partner, James."

Coz grinned widely. "Which means that you must be Fiona!" I smiled and shook his hand, slightly alarmed that he seemed to know who I was, wondering how much Thom had told him. "Sorry, I was confused - our mate Bjork has a frock a lot like that, though you're a great deal taller than she is. That said, I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if she turned up on stilts, it's the sort of thing she'd do... anyway, come in, come in, we're having mulled wine. It's just my job to run out and scare new visitors when we see a car's headlamps."

He lead us through the dark and into the light and noise and heat of a huge, open space that served as both hall and living room. In the centre was a massive Christmas tree, and gathered round was a swirling crowd of people, most of were wearing masks, hats and odd, old fashioned clothes. Leading us to a large iron cauldron bubbling over a hot plate, he directed us to take steaming mugs of mulled wine, then suddenly caught sight of a another set of headlamps coming up the lane, and excused himself to go running off. I looked over the crowd, trying to spot Thom or Ruth - even in masks I knew that I would have recognised them - but they were nowhere to be seen. Swarms of children dressed as mice, rats, rabbits and birds ran about the edges of the party, shrieking and chasing one another. There was soft music coming from one corner of the room, and some people were singing along - I looked over to see a group of musicians standing together, two tall, lanky men wearing stags antlers on their heads carrying guitars, a shorter man in an executioner's hood with a drum slung over his shoulder, one woman with a fiddle and another with a horn. The music came to a halt, and they started to squabble softly.

"Let's do The Well Below The Valley-O next," the taller lad suggested, but the fiddler nixed it.

"Not appropriate lyrics with small children present, Ed."

"The Bonfire Carol, maybe?"

"No, no, I don't want to do carols just yet. I know - let's play Long Lankin, that's always right for a good seasonal shudder - scare the living shit out of everyone." The lanky guitarist grinned at the thought.

"Don't know it, how does it go?" asked the tall guitarist. The lanky guitarist played a few bars and everyone groaned. "God, not another droney dirge about death, Jonny. It's Christmas, for fucks sake."

"It's not Christmas. It's the Solstice. Droney dirges about death are where it's at." He persisted in the chord progression until the other musicians joined in.

There was a wave of screams from outside, audible even over the noise of the party, as the Nightmare claimed another group of victims. Then the door opened and another family joined the party, a fox and a crow, accompanied by a rat and a stoat who shrieked with joy and ran over as soon as they saw the Rat King standing by the punch bowl. I stared at my lovers. Even in costume I would have known them anywhere - Ruth with her wave of dark brown hair dyed a shining chestnut to match her foxy face, wearing a neat, old fashioned red velvet riding jacket and breeches to match, with a long bushy tail peeking out from behind her.

"You want to be careful, wearing that in this part of the county," Coz warned. "There's rumours of a hunt on Boxing Day - you might find yourself chased by horses a lot fiercer than me."

"Absolutely fucking monstrous," swore the crow, its dark blue eyes flashing underneath its mask. "We should shop them and get the police on those fucking wankers." Thom's shoulders twitched inside the ancient, oversized black suit, the mask bobbing back and forth like a real bird beneath his odd, old-fashioned black bowler hat, festooned with ivy leaves and red berries. I saw his eyes scan the crowd and fix first on Peter, standing head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd, then slide down towards me, his face breaking into a helpless smile of adoration before he got control of himself. As Ruth drifted off into the crowd, greeting one couple after another, he maneuvered his way closer and closer towards me through the swarm of people. Although Peter was busy with the kids, James stuck by my side, staring suspiciously as he came towards me. "You made it," Thom finally sighed, taking me by the hands. He made as if to kiss me, but was flummoxed by the beak of his mask, so he settled for an awkward peck on the cheek.

"We actually made surprisingly good time out of London, for a holiday weekend," James tried his best to push himself into the conversation but Thom stared at him defensively, puffing up his shoulders in that way he did when he felt threatened or intimidated. I wanted to shout at him, to tell him _for fucks sake, it's only James_ , but his hedgehog spikes were out and quivering. "This is a beautiful house, it inhabits its setting well for modernist architecture," James ventured, settling into his default comfort zone of talking about design. "Do you know who the architect was?"

"No idea." The blue gaze still regarded him suspiciously from under the mask. I reached out and touched his elbow gently, trying to calm him, and he relented slightly. "You'd have to ask Coz or his wife Maggie. Coz will talk your ear off about modernist design if you give him half a chance." He glanced down at my rapidly disappearing mug of mulled wine. "Can I get you another one?"

"No thanks... but what you can tell me is where the loo is. Two hours sitting in a car is too long for me."

"This way," he gestured, holding out one arm to show me the way, with a slightly territorial glance back at James. He led me down a hallway away from the crowd, then up a short flight of stairs and along a balcony looking out over the gathering. "The room at the end," he told me, knocking gently on the door and finding it unoccupied.

I slipped inside quickly, but he followed me and shut the door behind him, locking it and leaning against it. "Are you going to watch me?"

He shrugged, stepping up to the mirror as I sat down on the loo. "Nothing I haven't seen before." As I made water, he took off his mask and fussed over his hair, trying to get it to flow under the brim of his hat and over his collar, down his back. "Don't flush just yet, I need it too." He flipped up the seat and unzipped his trousers as I struggled with my tights.

"I guess the magic really is gone, if we're sharing the loo like an old married couple," I sighed, trying not to watch him. It felt odd, and yet comfortingly familiar. I'd never felt comfortable enough in front of anyone to use the toilet in front of them before.

"Women always go to the loo in pairs, it makes sense to me," he shrugged, shaking himself off and flushing.

"You're not a woman, in case you hadn't noticed," I laughed, throwing a very obvious glance down towards his anatomy.

"I live in a house full of women. Ruth is always telling me I'm an honourary woman," he giggled. "Christ don't give me that schoolmarm look unless you want me to not be able to button my trousers back up."

"I don't want you as a woman," I quipped as he nudged me out of the way to wash his hands, though the way he sniffed appreciatively at the Lush soap did make me wonder.

His face clouded as he studied me in the mirror. "You might love me if I were a woman."

"Thom. Don't."

He turned to me, his eyes shining. "Get this mask off, I want to kiss you." I complied, pulling it up over my head, trying not to disturb the complicated braided arrangement of my hair. "You look like a little Scandinavian girl with your hair done up like that," he told me, then reached his face upwards to kiss me. "It looks horny as hell." I laughed and took his hat off, resting it on the side of the sink, smoothing his hair where it had started to stick up from rubbing against the lining. "Christ, I want you," he grunted, suddenly pushing me back against the wall, running his hands up the inside of my dress, pushing the feathers and ribbons out of the way.

"Are you drunk?" I asked, tasting the wine on his tongue.

"Completely pissed, and plan on staying that way all night."

"Stop it," I panted, though my body was already starting to respond to his, the soft velvet of his beard against my face, the feel of his slim hips slipping so easily between my thighs. "Everyone saw us come up here, people will talk."

"Don't care, let them," he insisted, moving his mouth back along my neck to nuzzle my ears with the soft caress of his lips. His hands were up under the waistband of my tights now, pushing them back down to the floor with my pants in one fluid motion. "Come on, get up here," he directed, lifting me bodily and setting me on the shelf of the sink, his cock spilling out of his trousers as he pushed between my knees.

Wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him hungrily, I knew I would only be arguing myself if I told him to stop. "I don't have any condoms with me."

"I don't care any more," he insisted, slipping inside me. "I fantasise about getting you pregnant, when I'm alone, playing with myself. All I can think about is just spurting up inside you, making babies with you and keeping you out here with me forever."

It both chilled me to the bone and at the same time made me so excited I couldn't think. "I... don't... want..." I tried to protest, but his thumb found my clitoris as his mouth found mine, sucking my tongue into his, and suddenly I realised that I didn't care either, just grinding up against him, coupling in a frenzy of lust and compulsion. A bottle of hand creme went flying but he just laughed, bracing one hand against the wall as he thrust into me. Half of me was terrified that someone would come knocking at the door at any moment, the other half just didn't care, too lost in my own pleasure. When we'd first met, we'd talked for hours about beauty and politics and art. Now we didn't even talk, we just fucked like teenagers in a stranger's bathroom. When had my life been reduced to this? But Thom was already snuffling and panting, his breath growing short.

"Come on, I know you've got an orgasm in there," he grunted, pushing with his thumb so hard it was almost, but not quite painful. "You always come so easily."

"I don't, you know," I snorted, feeling the orgasm already building under his fingertip. "Only with you."

He opened his eyes very wide and stared at me, one side of his face open, vulnerable, the other side hurt and wondering. "You tell me you don't love me - and then you say things like that to me, and you expect me not to love you?"

"Sex is not love," I shrugged.

"Why can't it be?"

I thought to myself, _because then we wouldn't be here at all_ , but I said nothing, concentrating instead on that small knot of tension building steadily between my legs. I wrapped my legs around him, and he suddenly picked me up and moved me, slamming my back against the door as he pushed, again and again, his whole body straining. I slumped back, grabbing a towel rack for support as I let him wrench the orgasm from my body, biting into the soft meat of his shoulder to keep myself from crying out as my body pulsed with pleasure, waves of sensation washing down my bones all the way to my feet.

His face twisted into a little smile of pride as I let my head slump back against the door. "Just give me another minute, I need to..." He shifted his weight as I let my legs fall back to the floor, then pulled out for a second, as I leant over the sink, trying to catch my breath. "No, I want to see your face, I always want to see your face." Catching me by the chin, he pulled my face towards him, then leaned me back against the sink, inserted himself back into me then twitched, juddered and twisted his way to his own orgasm. I pushed his tangled hair out of his face and kissed him over and again, kissed his forehead, his eyelids, the tip of his nose as he laughed gently with the sheer thrill of release. "Oh god, I want to eat you up," he snarled playfully, biting back at me, locking his teeth on a chunk of my cheek. "I just want to devour you, swallow you whole, and then I'll keep your bones safe inside me forever."

As he finally pulled away from me, he knelt down between my legs and gently kissed my bruised thighs, but I fussed over the state of the bathroom the way I knew I couldn't fuss over the state of his mind. "Christ, we've made a mess of this place, haven't we? We are the worst house guests in the world."

"Ha ha, I used to live with Coz, he knows what I'm like; he's used to it." He righted a couple of knocked over bottles as I climbed down from the sink, testing to make sure the lids were on tight.

I examined my rumpled dress in the mirror, then decided that the creases and new rips added to, rather than detracted from the ghostly impression. "We can't go back to the party like this, we stink of sex."

"Hang on," he told me, opening a cupboard and digging around it without so much as asking a by-your-leave. "Ah, here we go." He pulled out a few baby wipes and set to work, carefully cleaning between my legs, wiping away the pungent mixture of sweat and lubricant and dribbles of his own semen. "Fresh as a daisy," he insisted, wadding the used wipes in a ball, opening the cupboard under the sink and discarding them in the bin.

I shook my head at the casual ease with which he helped himself to his friends' belongings, then looked at him. "And what about you?"

"I love having the smell of you on me."

"With all those kids, and dogs, and... wild animals, up on the downs?"

He grumbled, then opened the medicine cabinet, digging around until he found some cologne. Pulling down his pants, which he'd never bothered to full take off, he spritzed a few bursts into his pubic hair, then pulled his trousers back up and buttoned himself back up. Men, they were just hopeless. "Come on," he said, opening the door.

"No, you go down first, I'll follow in about ten minutes, so it's not so obvious."

He laughed and rolled his eyes. "Fi, no one cares. They're all completely pissed."

I frowned. Whatever buzz I'd picked up off the mulled wine, it was long gone. "I was thinking more about saving the feelings of Ruth, and the kids?"

"They care even less. Children don't grow up to be embarrassed about sex, unless we train them to be. I'm never teaching my kids to be ashamed of their bodily urges, or anything else."

"Maybe I would like a moment alone," I finally snapped.

"Well, just say so, then, instead of dragging my wife, my kids and my fucking band into it," he snapped back. The rosy afterglow of orgasm was gone so quickly, and he was hedgehogging out again.

"Thom," I sighed reproachfully, taking his hand and raising it slowly to my lips to kiss it, rubbing the blond fuzz on his knuckles back and forth across my lips.

"I'm sorry," he muttered reflexively, raising his hand to my face. "I need another drink."

I opened my mouth to tell him not to, that I was worried about how much he was drinking, that I wondered why he needed so much alcohol to get through the night, but instead I just nodded, and closed the door after him as he set off down the balcony. I took a long drink of water from the tap, washed my face, carefully, without messing up my hair any more than Thom already had, then retrieved my tights from the floor. There was a run in them now, but I put them back on anyway, more for warmth than anything else. Then I carefully replaced my mask and tucked my hair away behind it. When I finally felt composed enough to handle the gathering again, I unlocked the door and let myself out.

Treading carefully down the stairs and back into the party, I realised that no one had even noticed we were gone. As the level of mulled wine in the cauldron went down, the level of jollity in the room had gone up, the musicians louder, the conversation more animated, kids and dogs chasing each other, shrieking and barking, around the tree. I located James, deep in conversation with Ruth, the smile on his face and the relaxed attitude of his body showing that he already found her the far more acceptable half of my lovers. Both Ruth and James had almost uncanny knacks of charming everyone, together they must have been an unstoppable avalanche of charisma. Slowly, I worked my way over towards them, slipping to their sides, hoping that my disappearance would have gone unremarked.

"Oh, there you are," laughed James, finally noticing me. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd fallen in - or if Thom had whisked you away to some other more exciting VIP area of the party."

"This already is the VIP party," I quipped, but Ruth eyed me, with what felt guiltily like an almost malevolent air.

"You mustn't let Thom monopolise you like that," she told me, though her voice grew distinctly colder as she addressed me. "It's not very fair to you and it's certainly not good for him. It makes him antisocial."

What? Why was she blaming me for that? Was she angry at me? It was so hard to tell with the fox mask twisting her features into a cynical grin. Instead of asking her what she meant, with James' curious ears pricking up, I changed tack and tried to compliment her. "You look absolutely lovely, Ruth, did you colour your hair?"

"It's temporary. It'll wash out tomorrow. I hope." She paused, noticing that her glass of mulled wine was nearly finished. "James, be a dear and get us some wine."

As he left, I wanted to pull her aside and ask her if everything was alright, but I could not shake the guilt that I'd only just been fucking her husband on a few feet above everyone's heads. I wondered if they could all hear, if she was embarrassed, if she'd had to stand there, with us thumping away, while everyone else knew what her husband was getting up to. "I'm sorry, did you hear anything?"

"Hear what?" Her guilelessness was complete - either she genuinely had no idea what I was talking about, or she genuinely did not wish to talk about it.

"Nothing. I guess the music in here is really quite loud," I mumbled into my mask, disturbed by the chilly tone between us when I'd always felt our conversation flow so naturally. "Your tail is beautiful - is it real?"

Her face finally melted into a wary smile. "It is, actually. Thom had a fit when I discovered it - I found it in a trunk in the attic when we bought the house, part of a scarf or something. He wanted to take it outside and bury it, give it last rites, the soppy old fool, but I always thought it would come in useful for something."

"It is beautiful, though... and I suppose it's vintage. That fox would have been dead long ago if it had lived its natural lifespan." I paused, grasping for conversation. "Do I look even slightly convincing as a swan?"

At that, she smiled. "You look lovely, that dress really suits you, that antique white looks beautiful against your skin."

"Thanks. I think it's going to be a shame to cover it up with my old coat."

"Oh, that's right," she seemed to relent, turning back towards me. "I said I would lend you my velvet cloak - but it turns out, it's not actually white, it's silver."

"Well, the mask has silver glitter on it," I pointed out, seizing on any way of pulling her into a more friendly conversation. "I'm sure it'll be fine. Did you bring it?"

"It's in the car."

James reappeared, handed us glasses of wine, but then excused himself to return to an intense conversation with Coz about modernist architecture. But instead of turning back to me, Ruth moved forward and turned her back on me, asking Coz something about minimalist Finnish furniture.

"Shall we fetch that cloak, maybe?" I suggested, my eyes boring into hers until finally she finally turned back towards me. She nodded, and gestured with her head. "We'll be back in a minute," I told James and followed her swiftly out. "Ruth, what's going on with you? Tell me, what is it? Are you angry at me?"

She said nothing as she dug in the back of the Jeep and pulled out a shopping bag, handing it to me. "Fiona..." she started to sigh, then shook her head and pulled out a sneaky cigarette.

"Ruth, talk to please, if I've done something wrong... I'm sorry, I shouldn't have gone off with Thom like that, straight away. It was gauche." I scanned her face for any sign, but it was impossible with that fox mask in the way. I reached out to take her hand, but she pulled it away.

"Oh, is that what you were up to? I genuinely had not noticed. How many times do I have to tell you? I do not care if you fuck my partner." She paused to take another drag of her cigarette, quietly simmering with anger but she finally replied. "But for fucks sake, Fiona, you told Thom that I was shit in bed. That _hurt_. What on earth were you thinking, saying something like that?" she snapped.

I pulled back, suddenly annoyed at the mask obscuring my own eyes, pushing it up onto the top of my head. "Oh, Ruth," I sighed, moving towards her, desperate to touch her, trying to think on my feet. It would be pointless to try to deny it, but maybe I could explain it away. "I... I didn't mean it. I panicked. Thom was in floods of tears, I needed to tell him something, to assuage his jealousy. You know how fragile men's egos are."

The fox still watched me evenly, blowing smoke out of her mouth. "But why on earth did you tell him that you were in love with me? It's absurd! Were you _trying_ to provoke a fight? You know how jealous he gets over you. How did you expect him to react?"

"It just slipped out, that I was in love, and he thought I was in love with him."

"You should have just let him believe that, that would be so much simpler."

"But it's a lie, I'm sick of lying."

"It's a nonsense. You're not in love with me, you're just in love some cosy dream about my lifestyle. I'm not who you think I am, Fi."

I wanted to tell her it was not nonsense, that I was still ridiculously, passionately, desperately in love with her, wanted to take her in my arms and press my lips against hers, force that frown into a smile, make her forgive me... but at that moment, another set of headlamps swung down the lane, and the Nightmare appeared at the door of the house, running stealthily across the lawn to where we are.

"Ssshhh," Coz insisted as another Jeep pulled into the parking lot and he prepared to leap out at the occupants.

But it was Chris, all dressed in an undertaker's black suit, her face painted like a skeleton and her eyes blacked out, accompanied by a small older woman dressed as a witch in long robes and a pointed hat. "Knock it off, Greenwood, I've lived on a stud farm my entire life, you'll have to try harder to frighten me than a horse skull my own father sold you."

"Come on, Chris, you could at least pretend," the Nightmare sighed as its shoulders slumped. "Ruth and Fiona were both proper scared - you should have seen Fiona nearly leap out of her skin when she saw me."

Chris's eyes sparkled with mirth. "I wish I'd seen it, the poor little poppet seems to scare at the drop of a hat. I bet she's an absolute screamer in bed..." The witch reached out with her broom stick and whacked Chris solidly on the rump. "Ouch!"

"Well, that means we're all here," Coz announced as he opened the door and herded us all into the party room. "We should set off on our march soon. Come on, everyone, attention, attention!"

"Where are we going?" I asked, feeling slightly stupid. I really had not read anything about a midnight march, though clearly I had missed a lot.

"Up to the bonfire on Beacon Hill!" Coz supplied. "It's an ancient tradition - the people of Steeple Redjack, they all march from the village green up to the Beacon, carrying lamps and burning torches, and they light a bonfire to mark the longest night of the year, when a dragon swallows the sun. And then there's dancing and merriment and great feasting, drinking and carousing until the old dragon gets ill and sicks up the sun again."

"Ancient tradition, meaning a bunch of old poets pretending to be druids made it up, back in the 1920s," Chris stage whispered in my ear.

"Hush!" insisted Coz, snapping his horse's head at her. A crowd of children pushed forward to gather at his feet as he addressed the crowd. "Attention! While we all light our lanterns - and don't worry if you didn't bring one, we have plenty of jars and candles to spare - we need to choose for the evening, the Lord of Misrule! The master of ceremonies, when the world is turned upside down, and the low shall be high and black shall be white and everything the Lord of Misrule commands that we do - we do the opposite. So if he - or she, we can have a Lady of Misrule - tells you to go right, then you go left. Understand?"

"Yes!" The children all shouted their agreement as Coz shook his head and stamped his feet and shook his magnificent horse's head.

"I think you should say 'no,'" I suggested and Coz nodded the horse's head until the kids all shouted NO at the tops of their lungs.

"Right! I have in my hand a bag of beans." He pulled out a small velvet pouch and shook it. "We shall all draw beans, and whoever pulls out the white bean, they get to be the Lord of Misrule for the evening. Understand?"

"No!" shouted the crowd.

"Don't look at the bean, don't look at it when you pull it out, just hold it in your hand," he directed as he started to walk through the crowd, holding out the velvet bag to anyone who wanted to take one.

"Ooh, me, me," laughed Peter, pushing forward to take a bean. One by one, everyone stepped forward to take one, but I shook my head, remembering that I was still holding Ruth's plastic bag. Reaching into it, I pulled out a shimmering cloak of silver velvet, lined with soft cream coloured fluff, and drew it round my shoulders, feeling myself transformed.

"Right! Are you all ready?" Coz shouted. "Now on the count of three, everyone show your bean, and we'll see who gets to be Lord of Misrule." All around the room, hands opened to reveal red beans, but from the back came the sound of cackling as the crow in the bowler hat stepped forward to show the white bean, clutched in his hand. "Right! We have a Lord of Misrule." Scrabbling on the table by the door, he produced a circlet of gold tinsel, which he draped around Thom's hatband, then produced a gnarled looking staff with a sheep's horn stuck on the end of it. "Lord of Misrule, what are your directions?"

Thom grinned, clapping his hands with delight and bouncing several times in place. "Right. My first act as Lord of Misrule, I want you to... EXTINGUISH ALL THE LANTERNS." Someone started passing out jam-jars with candles in them, tied to the ends of sticks, and Coz's wife slowly went round and started to light them. As she passed Thom, he reached out and grabbed her around the waist, jokingly pretending to molest her, thrusting his hips against her and pecking at her face with his long black beak until she screamed and slapped him away. "Now I want you to ... MAKE SURE THAT NO ONE AT ALL HAS ANY HIP FLASKS OF BRANDY OR CUPS OF MULLED WINE TO BRING WITH US."

The heady combination of fire, alcohol and small children seemed like a disastrous recipe, and I shivered, thinking of what terrible accidents could befall people in the dark. But if they did this every year, they must know what they were doing.

"Now I want you all to... stay in the house, and certainly make sure you go NOWHERE NEAR the Beacon Hill at the top of the far field." He seized a small child sitting near him and lifted her into the air until she shrieked. "And while you are NOT climbing to the Beacon, I want you all to make sure that you run about, skylark, and whatever you do, do NOT look where you are going and do NOT be careful where you tread. Have you got that?"

"No!" roared the assembled group of children and slightly drunk adults.

"Let's STAY!" howled Coz, snapping his horse-mouth at stragglers.


	17. Bonfire

"Now for the fun bit," Chris roared in my ear, pulling out a large hip flask from her jacket pocket and passing it to me. "Yomping about the countryside in the dark."

"How far is it?" I asked, wondering why I bothered with wearing white tights if we were going to be yomping about in mud. I took a sip of brandy but the spirits turned my stomach, so I handed it back.

"A mile and a half? Two miles?"

"More chatting!" Thom ordered, coming up behind me and seizing me about the waist, trying to lift me bodily off the ground. I shrieked then glanced around guiltily, but people were just laughing at his antics as the Lord of Misrule as they filed out of the house, the stream of lanterns starting to head up the garden path towards the farmlands beyond. "Scream louder! Louder, louder, louder."

"How much have you had to drink now?"

"Loads." He reached up and gave my breast a quick squeeze then brushed his terrible crow's beak against my cheek, the feathers tickling my face. "I would love nothing more than to spread your legs again and push this beak up inside you and fuck you with it," he murmured into my ear. I shuddered as he let me go and danced up ahead to lead the procession, especially now the musicians had stuck up a strange, haunting march.

I looked around for Peter and James, but they had gone up ahead with the children, as Peter taught them all how to do a stately marching and hopping dance up the road. Ruth was nowhere to be seen, as Chris, her witch friend and I brought up the rear of the procession. I wished I'd grabbed a lantern, as the path grew muddier as we crossed out of the formal gardens and out into the fields, but out of the sight of the lights of the house, the moonlight was clear and bright, and my eyes soon adjusted. It felt so wild, the music, the dancing, the procession leading up the side of the hill, the bobbing lights up ahead like will o the wisps. But as I watched the lamps up ahead, I forgot to watch my own feet, and found myself stumbling.

Chris caught me. "Are you alright, nymphet? You look decidedly peaked."

"I'm fine," I insisted.

"Hands off her, you're _my_ date tonight, you promised," the Witch grumbled, swinging her lantern around to illuminate Chris with her arm around me.

"Don't worry, she's not one of us," Chris insisted, grinning at me. "In fact, she finds our whole lesbian lifestyle vaguely shocking, don't you, poppet? She's Yorkie's latest, not for the likes of us."

"Chris, I swear to god, I'm not bothered. I think you just get off on the idea that people are scandalised by you."

The Witch cackled with laughter. "The child knows you better than you know yourself, methinks."

"I told you, don't waste your time trying to flatter her. She's heterosexual, through and through. I bet if you lifted up her feathers, it'd say 'Property of Yorke Farm' stamped on her pretty swan flanks."

"Humph. I don't trust those Yorkes, not as far as I could spit a rat," the Witch protested. "Especially not that Ruth. She turned Vanessa, and remember how badly that all turned out."

"Who is Vanessa?" I asked, feeling my stomach decidedly lurching, but I was trying to be friendly, and prove to Chris how un-threatened I was by their lifestyle. "Ruth seems to leave a string of broken hearts behind her, I can't keep track of the lesbians of Lambscot like you can, Chris."

"That's an understatement," snorted the Witch.

"What have you heard about Vanessa?" Chris asked, concerned. "Because I'm not sure I want to be the one to break this to you."

"I've only seen her portraits. Who is she?"

"Was she," corrected the Witch.

"Was?" I paused as we passed through a gate, out of the open farmland and into the more rough scrubland of the limestone outcrop. "Is she dead or something?" I felt a chill pass down my spine, as if the ghosts of Victorian dead really were walking abroad with the disguised dancers. No, it was just the breeze, sweeping down off the higher downs.

"Oh Christ," muttered Chris, but the Witch cackled.

"Killed herself."

"What?" I stuttered.

"Hung herself from the rafters, they never really got to the bottom of it, but Ruth Lloyd was all mixed up in it. Vanessa was the wife of an art history professor down in Oxford, moved to Lambscot for the clear air and liberal atmosphere. Lovely girl, but clearly bored senseless by village life. She met Ruth while that Yorke was off touring America or something, and they had one of those affairs that turned the village upside down, fucking on trains and in the back rooms of pubs, they didn't even try to be discreet about it."

My head reeled as I tried to process this, wondering how much of it was gossip and how much was real, but Chris remained unhelpfully silent, her tread heavy behind me on the trail. "Well it seems like it's quite difficult to be discreet in Lambscot - you two clearly know everyone's business."

"No, they were indiscreet. Or rather, Vanessa was. She told everyone that she was leaving her husband, that Ruth was the great love of her life, and the two of them were going to set up together in that flat in Oxford."

"Ruth was going to leave Thom?" I was surprised at that, the way Ruth swore that she'd never even thought of leaving him.

"I don't know how serious she was," Chris finally added. "She didn't deny it, which actually means quite a lot coming from Ruth."

My head spun, but then my heart leapt. If there had once been a woman that Ruth had considered leaving Thom for, then that meant... that meant I had a chance. Ruth might one day love me enough to want to be with me.

"I don't think so," the Witch snorted. "I think she was stringing her along. Because when that band were on tour, they would be together and it would be this great passion, but as soon as they came back, she would go back to being the dutiful little wife."

"Yorkie was a nightmare in those days," Chris sighed. "He was such hard work. I don't really blame Ruth for taking comfort where she found it. He's done a lot of growing up in the past ten years."

"Growing up?" I scoffed. The idea of my petulant little Hedgehog as a grown up seemed ludicrous.

"It was when she fell pregnant, that's when everything changed," the Witch nodded, her face so twisted and ugly in the candle light, that I wasn't sure if it was a mask or her actual features.

"Catherine, stop it," Chris warned.

"No, it's true, that's what sent Vanessa over the edge. Ruth fell pregnant with Noël, and that's when she told Vanessa that she'd never leave her husband."

"But Yorkie did sort himself out at that point, when he found out he was going to be a father," Chris insisted. "He got some therapy, they moved out of that awful flat in town and bought that beautiful house, he really did make a massive effort to shape up as a human being, stop throwing his toys out of the pram all the time." It was so strange to hear Chris defending her lover's husband, that I found myself actually believing her.

"If you ask me, it was less to do with the therapy and more to do with the selling 4 million records and the massive increase in his bank balance," Catherine snipped.

"You know as well as I do, that kind of money produces as many problems as it solves. You hardly live in penury, Miss Tyle of the sugar fortune Tyles."

"I don't care, what that woman did to Vanessa was unforgivable. She spent four years telling her that she was going to leave her husband, then she falls pregnant, says the whole thing's off, and a month later, Vanessa kills herself? You can't tell me that that Ruth Lloyd didn't have a hand in her death."

I shuddered, just trying to process of all of this. Every time I thought I knew Thom and Ruth, another secret seemed to come crawling to light.

"There's no proof of that. She didn't leave a note. And she'd been terribly depressed for some time, her ex-husband said so at the inquest. She'd been hospitalised twice, before she even met Ruth."

Catherine clucked her tongue and moved on ahead, shuffling after the procession as we realised that we were falling further and further behind the main group.

"Is that all true?" I whispered to Chris.

"Who knows what truth is. Take anything Catherine says with a grain of salt - she was my on-again off-agin girlfriend for many, many years before I took up with Ruth."

"Are you lot just a seething hotbed of jealousy and suspicion? Cassie hates you, Catherine hates Ruth, who knows who Ruth hates... And here I thought that Lambscot was some Marxist feminist paradise of lesbian living."

Chris hooted with laughter. "There's this fallacy that straight girls often believe, that being a lesbian is somehow easier, that it's a free pass out of relationship troubles. Well let me tell you, honestly, most of the time I think, being with other women, it's not simpler at all. It's about ten times more complicated. I think you straight girls have it much easier, you know."

"The grass is always greener, Chris." But something about the story nagged at me. "Do you really think that Ruth broke up with Vanessa because she fell pregnant?"

"Oh, yes, that bit is definitely true. Her relationship with Yorkie was always a bit on-again, off-again up until then. They split up at least twice that I know about - though they'd always get back together a month or two later. But when Ruth fell pregnant, she resolved to stick with it and commit to him. It was definitely a turning point for them."

My stomach lurched. I knew how Thom's mind worked, how he would have interpreted that. "So that's why Thom keeps trying to get me pregnant."

"What?" Chris exclaimed, turning towards me and catching me by the arm. From nowhere she seemed to produce a torch and shone it in my face. "Christ, I knew that I recognised that pale, peaky look to you. You're as queasy as a mare with foal."

"Fuck, no," I sputtered. "I can't be." I tried to think back to when I'd last had my period. "Chris, I know you're the town gossip, but for fucks sake, you cannot tell a soul. Fuck, when I get back to London I have got to see a doctor..."

"If it's an abortion you want, I can do it for you. We all trained in basic abortifacient skills back in the Thatcher era when we thought it was going to be criminalised again." I had expected to see the edge of a leer to her face, but it was completely open and honest, even concerned.

"Chris, that's very sweet of you to offer, but I think I need to get back to London and see a real doctor... Why am I even mixed up in this? I need to end it." My emotions were lurching about so sickening from one extreme to the other, like a drunken sailor on a tossing ship. We had fallen so hopelessly behind as we talked that I could barely see the end of the procession, but someone was coming towards us now, a dark figure against the spangled starry sky. "Sorry, sorry, we're coming," I called out, once again cursing the inappropriate shoes that I'd chosen to wear.

"Slow down, slow down!" a familiar voice commanded. "In fact, why don't you just stop walking altogether."

Chris got out her torch and shone it on the dark silhouette, revealing a tinsel-decked bowler hat and a crow mask, standing on the slight bank above the path. "Oh, for crying out loud, Yorkie. Did Catherine send you down after us? I better go and catch up with her before she goes and tells Ruth that I'm banging Fiona back in the woods here." She shuffled off into the darkness, the light of her torch disappearing behind a cluster of trees.

"Well, what are your orders for me now, Lord of Misrule," I asked, feeling about a hundred emotions swirling inside me at once.

He walked along the bank above the path moving ever closer to me, so close in the dark that his beak almost brushed my face, lowering his voice as he crouched down, bending his face towards me. "Run." I stopped in my tracks as he pulled off his mask and lowered it gently to his chest, staring down at me from the higher ground. "You look so beautiful tonight, I just look at you and feel weak."

So many questions formed in my head that I didn't know which to ask first. "Thom, did you know about Vanessa?"

I could almost hear him rolling his eyes in the dark as he sighed heavily. "Of course I did. We never lied to each other in those days. We never lied to each other at all until you came along."

"That's not fair."

"It's true, though."

"Did you deliberately get Ruth pregnant so that she would leave Vanessa and stay with you?"

"For fucks sake, is that what Chris has been telling you? That woman, I should have turned her out of our house long ago."

"Is it true?"

"Of course it's not fucking true. Ruth had just turned 33, and her biological clock went off. It was completely her idea to have children. I was really worried about it - I had no idea if I would be much cop as a father, but she talked me into it, and you know, she was right. We did alright in the end."

"I'm sorry. I don't know why I always doubt you." Circling him with my arms, I pulled myself closer and rested my head against his chest. It was so strange to feel him up above me for a change.

"I honestly don't know why Vanessa killed herself. She was a very troubled woman, right from the start. Ruth used to have a habit of finding wounded animals and rescuing them and bringing them home to nurse back to health."

"Is that what you think she did with me?"

He laughed, playing with the two plaits of my hair I had woven into the swans' wings. "No. She didn't find you, did she? I did." There was more than a slight edge of jealousy to his voice, but he paused to compose himself. "She definitely did with me, though."

"She didn't. She told me that. She told me she found you a fierce intelligence under all that hair."

His mask hid his features, but he looked down, his lips pursed. "I saw Vanessa about three days before her death. I said all this at the inquest, I don't know why Chris is telling you anything else. She seemed happier, to be honest. I think she was relieved when Ruth broke it off with her. She told me she never thought of herself as a lesbian - that the whole Lambscot thing did her head in. That she had just..." his voice broke slightly as he told me. "...she had just met Ruth, and fallen in love."

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." I didn't know which of the two stories to believe, Catherine's or Thom's, but the discomfort of the parallels with my own seemed obvious.

"I know, it feels a bit like history repeating itself, that time as tragedy, but this time as farce. Everyone falls in love with Ruth. She just has that way about her. Sometimes I feel like I just slide through life in her slipstream."

"No," I told him, feeling suddenly very very awful for ever having doubted him. "No, you don't. You are lovable."

"You say that, but you just... don't."

"Give me time, Thom, just give me time." At that moment, I resolved to stop fucking Ruth. At least, not when he wasn't there. I couldn't stand hurting him any more, he had been through enough. He had always been kind to me and honest to me; he was a good man.

"Hit me," he begged, and I looked up, surprised, seeing him grinning in the moonlight. "I asked you to hit me." I raised my hand slowly, loath to hurt him, but he caught it and held it. "As the Lord of Misrule, I ask you to hit me."

And then I smiled and got it. Raising my face to his, I pushed my mouth up onto his gently, nibbling at his lips. A tiny flicker of lust curled inside me. Christ, what was I thinking? What if I was already pregnant with his child? But the voice of a devil argued back inside my head. Well, in that case, one more time wouldn't hurt. Quickly nipping back into the forest and letting him take me against a tree... What if I could love this man? What if I could bear his baby, what if their family just absorbed me and another child? I wouldn't have to move to New York, I wouldn't have to deal with the confusing world of finding another job just yet... No!

"Come on," I told him, pulling away. "We're falling really far behind the procession - and don't you have official duties to be fulfilling?"

"Yes, yes, I know. Come on, hop up on the bank - I'll show you a shortcut."

"Is it safe? Neither of us have a lantern."

"I know this whole ridge like the back of my hand. It's only about five miles from where I live - I frequently walk home this way from Coz's house when the weather is good." Taking his hand, I let him pull me up off the road and onto the bank, picking out a steep path. I swore as we crossed a small stream, and my shoe filled with water. "Hold onto this tree branch, we're just going to scramble up the other side - you're good." The ground slanted steadily upwards, the bark of trees shining in the silvery moonlight, and below us, I could see the procession of lamps weaving their way around a shallower path. "This used to be a hill fort, thousands of years ago. Can you imagine trying to climb this bit with angry Celts hurling rocks down on you? Makes this seem like a picnic."

"Hey, my lot would be safe inside the hill-fort. You'd be Jorvik the Viking climbing up the sides." It seemed much easier to fall back into our old pattern of teasing each other.

"Right! Take my hand..." He took hold of me and hauled me up until I emerged, blinking, on the bare hilltop, with the lights of Oxfordshire spread out below us like a map. "I'm the king of the castle, and you're the dirty rascal," he chanted, thrusting his hands into the sky, then he pulled a hipflask out of his coat pocket and took a swig, offering it to me.

"No thanks, I found that climb hard enough sober. I don't want to have to do it backwards, completely pissed."

"I think I see the villagers from Steeple Redjack making their way up towards the beacon," he observed, leading me over to the other side of the earthworks, pointing down to another, longer snake of lanterns making their way up the opposite side of the hill.

"Where's the beacon?"

"Turn around."

I don't know what I expected - a huge wooden man, a construction in the shape of some ancient god - but instead it was a large iron cage on a post, loaded with logs and scraps of wood. There were already a couple of men in safety vests standing around it, poking it with sticks and pouring lighter fluid on it.

"Hullo," Thom called out to them, taking my hand as we approached.

"You from the Redjack Chase lot, then?"

"I'm the Lord of Misrule," Thom insisted, drawing himself up to his full height. "It'll be my job to light the bonfire."

"Right you are. Well, you'll need to light a flaming brand, and stick it through this gap here - you can see there's a load of wadded up newspaper that's been primed with kerosene." Thom watched, entranced, as the fire warden told him how to properly start the blaze, but I wandered off, watching the fiery snakes twisting up the sides of the hill, disappearing behind trees for a moment, before reemerging on the other side. I could hear the singing, now, as the musicians made their way into the hillfort, their antlers shining bleached and white in the moonlight. The Nightmare Horse appeared behind them, dancing about and snapping at any children that got too close. Then came the King Rat, waving his sword in the air, leading a pack of children in an odd, lurching dance. Behind them, a rag-tag procession of creatures, carrying lanterns, torches and lamps. Slowly, they gathered around the beacon, driving the sticks holding the lanterns into the ground in a semi-circle. From the other side, the Steeple Redjack procession were now starting to spill into the circle, also dressed in masks and costumes, though their Creature, an eight foot monster with a staring eyes and a bird's bill, was not nearly as terrifying as our Nightmare Horse.

I scanned the crowd, looking for my friends. Peter was surrounded by children, lifting them up into the air one by one so that they could get a better view of the unlit fire. James had found Chris, and was sharing her brandy, slapping her heartily on the back like a pair of old school boys. But I still couldn't see Ruth, though I moved around the perimeter of the crowd, searching for her red jacket and her foxy tail.

The whole village was gathered, crowded around the bonfire, clustered at one corner of the hilltop as Thom stepped forward, holding a flaming brand in his right hand, and the horned staff in the other. "Ladies! Gentlemen! Boys and girls! Rats, stoats, foxes, birds and other small creatures that creep or fly upon the face of the earth!" he cried in an almost Shakespearian tone, holding everyone's attention with his magnetic stage presence. "It is the longest night of the year, when the monster has eaten the sun." The Nightmare emerged from the thick of the crowd and danced around him, its jaw snapping. The Lord of Misrule stalked back and forth in front of the gathering, stopping occasionally to pull a woman out of the crowd and peck at her face in a ghastly parody of sexual congress. He was mesmerising, dancing back towards the cage, bounding and leaping into the air, his body twisting, as lithe as a gymnast as he jumped and kicked. "As Lord of Misrule, I do not declare... all lamps must be... EXTINGUISHED!" With this, he seized his flaming torch and thrust it, powerfully but gracefully, straight into the heart of the wood pile. It crackled with sparks, the wind catching it and blowing off huge flaming chunks as the dry wood caught fire and huge red and orange flames leapt into the sky.

A cheer went up from across the hilltop, children and adults alike jumping up and down with excitement, chanting and whooping, the sheer animal thrill of the warmth and light of the bonfire. The firelight sent flickering shadows all across the gathering, but for the first time, I could see actual faces, so I walked slowly round, looking for Ruth. Instead, I found James and Peter bickering lazily into an argument.

"You're so good with children," James sighed, as Peter waved off another conscript for his rat army. "It makes me sad you might never get to be a father yourself."

Peter's face fell. "You mean, you don't want children? Ever?"

"No, I didn't say that. I kind of did... some day. But it's kind of difficult for a single gay man to, you know, source children at the drop of a hat."

"You're not a single man, any more, Jamie. I know you have trouble remembering that."

"I never forget that. I meant... never mind." He paused. "Do you really want children, of your own?"

Peter's face grew wistful. "There are always other options. Adoption, surrogacy... it would nice to explore them."

James shrugged and threaded his arm around Peter's wasplike waist. "We could always do that Madonna thing... you know, adopt an orphan from Africa. That way our child might even, you know, share some of your genetic origins..."

"Jamie! Do you deliberately say these things to infuriate me?"

"No! What did I say now? I'm sorry. Peter... don't sulk, please."

"Firstly... how many times have I told you, about not treating the entire continent of Africa, which incorporates so many different nations and cultures and peoples... as if it were a single country as small and homogenous as, say, Wales. How would you feel if I suggested we adopt a child from somewhere like Romania, and insisted it had exactly the same genetic makeup as you, because it was white?"

"OK, OK, I'm sorry, you're right. I'm an idiot."

"Besides, where the hell do white people get off, treating the Global South as some kind of giant incubator? It would be far more appropriate if we adopted a mixed race child from one of Britain's own communities..."

"Of course, you're absolutely right." James frowned as he considered it. "But we'd have to get a bigger house. And if we move to New York..."

"I don't mean next week, you muppet." He ruffled James' hair affectionately. "I meant maybe in a few years, when we're settled. When we're an old married couple."

"The way you two squabble, I swear to god, you're already an old married couple," I teased, coming up behind them and draping my arms around both their shoulders.

"There you are. We were wondering where you'd got to," James sighed with relief, though at discovering me alive, or at being relieved from a discussion he felt he was losing, badly, I could not quite tell.

"Taken by the trees, off with the fairies," I whispered in a sing-song voice. "Or the lesbians..."

"You and your lesbians. Look, when do you want to be off?" James ventured. "It's getting quite late, and though this is all good, clean, country fun, that Greenwood fellow told me it was going to be going all night, and honestly, we can't be up that late. Peter has to be up in the morning for another run of performances."

"It's alright, don't worry about me." I reassured them. "I'll make my own way home."

"Or make your own way into someone else's home." His eyes flickered up towards Thom, still dancing maniacally around the fire, trailing a line of small rats and mice, all overtired and very excited.

"Don't judge," I told him.

"I'm not judging. I had a long talk with that Ruth of yours, I'll have you know. She's a fascinating woman, I'll grant you that. If I were straight... well, we're all lucky I'm not straight. But don't forget - you are in over your head with those two. There is a lot more going on than what you see on the surface, with them."

"Don't I know it," I sighed. "You're not telling me anything I don't know."

"Just watch out for yourself. Be careful, that's all I'm saying."

"I'll be fine, I always am." I paused, still scanning the crowd. "Have you seen Ruth lately, though? I seem to have lost track of her."

"She took the children back down to the house to put them to bed after the bonfire was lit."

"Oh." I sighed with relief. "Well, I'll just go down and find her..."

"We might not be here by the time you get back, so I'll just give you a hug and a kiss now, and wish you all the best of luck..."

"You, too, James, thank you so much - thank you both of you, for coming up here and putting up with all of this."

"No, no, it has been our pleasure, it has been a fantastic evening. I've learned so much about your quaint British customs tonight," Peter purred, enfolding me in his arms and leaving an enthusiastic kiss on each cheek. With a jaunty wave, I dashed off down the path, slipping and sliding on the mud. Dammit, why hadn't I stuck to Thom's shortcut? For all its trees and banks, it was still less muddy than the churned-up mess that was the footpath, which wound alongside, and sometimes seemed to merge with a small stream. But eventually I made my way down, across the fields, then through the formal garden, back to the house.

Yet as I made my way along the lawns, I heard voices - one was an unfamiliar woman, but the other was definitely Ruth. I froze, looking around until I saw the hovering lights of two lit cigarettes in a kind of sheltered bench. My heart ached - it wasn't even Chris, she was still back up at the fire. Was this yet another woman that Ruth was launching an affair with? Jealousy went through me with a knife as I snuck up towards them, but as I crept, one of the lights went out, the cigarette crushed underfoot, and a woman shrouded in a black top hat and a long black coat got up and slipped away before I could even see who she was.

And yet her exit left the seat next to Ruth unoccupied, so I slipped quietly in beside her. "Who was that?" I tried to ask casually, but jealousy curdled my voice.

"None of your business," Ruth snapped, exhaling a plume of smoke.

"I was only asking, don't bite my head off."

"Don't play dumb with me, Fi, it doesn't suit you. I know that tone of voice and you have no right to it."

"No one ever has a right to expect anything from you, do they, Ruth?" I tossed back.

"And what about you, Fi? What do you expect from people? Are you some kind of cuckoo's egg that forces its way into a nest like a parasite, then takes advantage of its hosts?"

"What?" I felt torn between outrage at the accusation, and the sheer tearing pain of someone I loved having a go at me.

"Are you pregnant, Fiona?"

"Ruth!" I practically shrieked. "Oh my fucking god, that fucking witch, Chris - she told you? How dare she!"

"Actually, Catherine told me, but what do you fucking expect, Fi? This is a village. Everyone knows everything about everyone here. There are no secrets."

"And you were just telling me that no one cared a fig what anyone does."

"That wasn't me, that sounds like something Thom would say, and frankly, he's a fucking idiot sometimes."

There was the sound of a door opening in the house, and the woman in the long black coat stuck her head out again. "Look, I'm sorry, you two, but could you please keep your voices down? I don't want you to wake up the kids, now we've finally got them asleep."

"Sorry, Maggie, we're just going. We'll see you later, OK?" My heart calmed somewhat as I realised it had been Colin's apparently totally straight wife, rather than yet another rival for Ruth's affections. "For gods sake, keep your voice down. Unless you want everyone in the damn world to hear what I'm about to tell you."

"Ruth... don't be angry with me, please," I begged as she lead me out of the gardens and up towards the high meadow. "No, let's not go up the path, please, it's a complete mudbath and I've not got appropriate shoes. Can we go round the back way?"

"That's old growth forest through there, it's a complete labyrinth, it stretches forty miles along the ridge - you can wander round for days in it."

"No, there's a way up the side, Thom just showed me, earlier."

Ruth sighed, but followed me, though it soon became obvious that my confidence had been misplaced. We wandered, deeper and deeper into the wood, but I couldn't seem to find the bank that lead upwards to the plateau of the hillfort.

"Come on, I'm freezing," Ruth complained. "I'm not dressed for this. I was expecting there to be a bonfire."

"I'm not cold," I lied. "Here, take your cloak - it's lined and it's very warm."

"What about you?" Her voice was defiant, like she wanted to refuse, but she was shivering. "How about I give you the hunting colours? The jacket is double-breasted, it's roomy, it will probably fit you." 

I took it from her and slipped my arms into it as she wrapped the huge, fluffy cape around her, but it wouldn't quite button over my breasts. "This probably looks ridiculous with the swan mask, but oh well."

"I'm fucking sick of masks," Ruth muttered, pulling off her fox mask and dashing it to the ground with a petulance that made me wonder if she was drunk.

"Don't do that, it's a beautiful mask." Bending down, I picked it up, noticing the way her scent clung to it faintly.

"I can't get the hood up over the damn mask, and my ears are cold." As she pulled up the hood of the cloak, she seemed to drift back in time, a druid or a priestess, some primordial figure dreamed up by the forest.

"Fine, I'll be Ianuarius," I shrugged, putting the fox face on the back of my head, leaving my hands free to scramble up any more steep banks. 

"Two-faced. It suits you," Ruth snorted.

"Don't, that's that fair."

We crossed a stream, but the landscape ahead was a wide, flat clearing, rather than the steep slope I'd expected. The moon had gone behind a cloud, and it was pitch black, that kind of countryside night that sucked the light out of the sky. I moved closer to the sound of her footsteps, trying to grab at her hand for comfort, but she yanked it away.

"Stop it, do you think I don't know what game you're playing?"

"I'm not playing any games," I insisted, but as the cloud passed from the moon I realised that I was not on the track that Thom had showed me - in fact, I had no idea where we were, though I tried to walk confidently into the clearing ahead to get my bearings. "I know you're so used to all these Lambscot Lesbians and their romances, shuffling and manipulating one another endlessly into recombinations of affairs, but Ruth, this is all so new to me."

"Do you think I'm completely naive?" Ruth sighed, sitting down on a large, exposed slab of rock and pulling out her pack of cigarettes. "You didn't even answer me. Are you pregnant?"

"I don't know, and that's the truth."

"Have you been trying to get pregnant? Thom swore to me that you were always so careful with condoms and morning after pills. That's part of the deal."

"He..." No, I wasn't going to try making that excuse, even if it was true. "We haven't always exactly been carefully recently."

Ruth sucked petulantly on her cigarette then exhaled in a furious plume. "Are you fucking stupid, Fiona? What do you think is going to happen? Do you think he's just going to move you and another baby into our house? And we'll all just live together in a big, happy, polyamorous family?"

I bit my lip nervously. That had kind of been what it sounded like Thom wanted to do.

"Do you think I'm just going to allow that? Because I can tell you right now, it's not going to happen. I won't allow it."

"But I thought you were OK with..."

"I'm OK with Thom having an affair with you. I'm fine with him running off to London to screw you, or even have you over in our house on the odd weekend I'm off with Chris. But if you think that I'm going to let you move into my house, with my children, like a cuckoo's egg, like a parasite, you and your brat, while Thom uses you like a brood mare to beget more kids after I've told him no... no, Fiona, you've got another think coming."

"But..." My head reeled. I didn't know which of them to trust any more, which story was true. "I thought the three of us could be together. We did before, and it was so beautiful, the three of us in bed like that. It was so perfect. Why can't we have that again?"

"Do you honestly think that Thom is going to let you and I anywhere near each other, in his bed, now that he knows that we were lying to him and going off to screw in hotel rooms in Soho? Do you really think that Thom - arrogant, self-obsessed, jealous Thom - is going to allow that?" 

I paced back and forth, trying to stay warm, not wanting to believe what I was hearing. "Surely we could convince him... you could persuade him, Ruth, he'd do anything you asked, really..."

"And why should I do that? Do you think I don't know what you want? You see my life, and you want it. You want to just take it. You want my husband, you want my family, you want my house, you want my studio - the way you even asked me to teach you printmaking - do you think I can't see you, trying to turn yourself into me, in order to worm your way into my life?"

"What? That's absurd! I was interested, that's all. I was trying to connect with you. I've been an artist for many, many years before I even knew who Thom was, so don't flatter yourself."

"Flatter myself," she snorted. "You forget - I talked to James. He told me about your little plans to ingratiate yourself into my house, my lifestyle... He even laughed and said he wondered if it was house you were in love with and not the man."

"Oh my god." I was going to kill James the next time I saw him. Flinging myself down on the ground at her feet, I skinned my knees on the rock, but it was too important not to tell her the truth. "Ruth, you have got to stop listening to half digested gossip from other people, and just listen to me. I love you. I would love you in that warm kitchen up on the Downs, I would love you in a two room flat in Streatham. There is one reason and one reason alone that I want to insert myself into that lifestyle, into that house, into your family. Because I love you and I want to be near you."

She only laughed. It slew me. "You're a fantastically good liar. Writers always are. You think you can just bend words and cover one layer of lies with another, and no one will ever find you out. But they do, they always do."

"But I'm not lying," I insisted. "For the first time in my fucking life, I'm trying to tell the truth, even if I don't understand it. I love you. I don't know why, but I do."

"Fiona, you're like a little girl. You want the impossible, only because you can't have it. Give me the moon on a stick, and give it to me now."

I gazed up into her face, feeling sick with unrequited love. "You want me to go. You want me to just take that job in New York and disappear, never bother you again. Because if that's what you really want, if that's what will make you happy, to go, and leave you and your family alone, I love you so much, I would even do that for you. Whatever. You. Want."

Her eyes were huge things, her face like a big pale moon floating before my eyes. "You silly little goose. You really are in love, aren't you? Oh, you..." She reached out her hands and touched the side of my face, but the mask was in the way. I moved closer, cupping her face in my hands, then closed my eyes, bringing my mouth up towards hers.

I didn't hear the footsteps behind me. I barely heard the voice, incoherent with brandy and with rage and jealousy. "Ruth, get off her. What did we agree? What did we fucking agree? You said you'd leave her alone, you promised me. It is the one and only thing I have ever asked you. Why are you doing this? You keep lying to me, over... over... her!"

"You're the fucking liar," I snarled back, suddenly recognising Thom's voice, though I didn't even turn to look at him.

Someone grabbed my arm and yanked, hard, pulling me off balance. I jerked wildly, trying to stand up and pull away, but the mud was so slippery. Then there was a rushing sensation, a whistling, like wind, or air going by. And then there was the oddest sensation, like I felt I was falling, that strange sensation, almost of flying, just as you're falling asleep, but without the jolt of awakening ever coming. Something hit me, a glancing blow. My head rattled, and all my teeth shook inside my jaw, but I kept on falling.

I heard Thom's voice, one last time, an almost incoherent scream. "Ruth!"


	18. The World Turned Upside Down

It was dark. Why was it so dark? Of course, it was night. "She's dead," said Thom's voice, muffled and indistinct. Ruth? No! I struggled, looking around desperately, but I couldn't see her anywhere. The sensation of being lifted, carried.

"She's dead," Thom said, this time quite clearly. He was sitting in the window of her studio, holding her old sketchbooks in his hands, the pages drifting away like scattered leaves. "What are we going to tell the children?"

"The children?" I asked, and when I turned, they came walking in, Noël very solemn, but Agatha trying very hard not to smile, as she carried a tiny newborn infant in her arms. "Give her here, she's too little for you. Who is this?"

"Our sister, Ruth," she insisted.

"Sister?" I murmured. "No, Ruth is your mother. Was your mother."

"Our baby," Thom told me, rising from his seat, scattering leaves and twigs and clods of earth everywhere. "You'll have to be mother to all of them, now."

"Mother?" I gasped. "I can't mother..." But Aggie was clinging to my legs, so tight that I couldn't move them. I had no idea she was so heavy, she looked like such a little slip of a girl.

"You have to look after all of us, now," Thom insisted, bending down over me, brushing his lips across my forehead. His hair was growing so long, curling across his shoulders and down his back like an 17th Century aristocrat. "You agreed when we got married."

"Married? But you don't believe in marriage," I tried to tell him, even as I looked down at my ring finger and saw a gold wedding ring, with a large knot in the centre, like a lock. "Marriage is patriarchy. You said you were a socialist, that you didn't believe in owning people."

"Property is theft," Thom insisted, pushing his hair back, though it seemed to be growing longer and longer as I looked at him, like the clinging tendrils of a vine. "I stole you, fair and square. Come with me..." He held out his hand and tried to pull me to my feet, but I found I couldn't move. My legs were completely numb, I couldn't even feel my feet. "Come with me," he insisted, and he took me by the arms, wrapping me in Ruth's long, silver cloak, then he picked me up, and we flew, up through the air, through the open window, out into the bright sunshine. 

Up above the trees we flew, so high into the sky that all of Oxford looked like a map down below us, the spires like little matchstick towers reaching up into the sky. I clung to him, though more from the cold than the fear, though as we flew up above the clouds, up towards the sun, it grew more and more warm, until I started sweating. The sun was huge, it filled the vacuum of space like a giant glowing eye, drawing steadily nearer and nearer, the darkness of rushing, collapsing in like a giant tunnel, until the glowing sun was all I could see. It was so beautiful, so warm, so filled with love, and I longed for nothing more than to be inside it, willing myself to fly up, up, closer and closer towards it as the sky collapsed around me.

And then a woman stepped in the way. A tall woman, with long, wavy red hair, wearing a silk dressing gown wrapped around her like a shroud. I knew I recognised her, though I couldn't put a name to her. She said just one single word. "Stop."

"What? Why? The sun is so warm and I'm so cold. I want to go," I begged.

The sun disappeared, abruptly, and we were back in Ruth's studio. The woman still stood in front of us, holding her arm out, trying to push the children back from me. Who on earth was she? I'd seen her before. As I looked about, I realised that the painting over the door had changed - the divan was still there, the mounded fabric, but the woman had vanished from the painting. Vanessa. Ruth's lover. Ruth's dead lover, was standing in front of me, shaking me gently by the shoulders.

"It's not time for you to go, Fiona Ffordd. Not yet. Go back," she whispered, and bent forward to kiss me gently on the forehead.

 

I woke with a start. Pain. My whole body was flooded with pain. I was cold, and damp, and I couldn't move my legs. I tried to turn, but my whole head felt muffled, my hair was caught on something and when I tried to raise my hand to my head to clear it, I felt something sticky and wet.

"Oh my god, she's alive!" A face swung into view, a familiar face, a man, with long, tousled dark blond hair and a fuzzy beard. A kind face, an honest face, though something seemed wrong with one of his eyes, the eyelid wouldn't fully open.

"She can't be. Half her fucking temple is gone, split on that rock face half a mile back."

"No, Ruth, I'm telling you, she's alive, her eyes are open. She just moved her hand. No, no, stop, don't try to touch that." A hand took mine, pulled it away from my head, then held it. "For fucks sake, get your mobile. We've got to call an ambulance."

"I don't have my mobile, it's back at the house. And it's a little too fucking late to be calling for an ambulance now." A woman swung into view, an incredibly beautiful woman but with a terrible cruelty to her face. For some reason, I didn't like the woman, but I couldn't remember why. I wanted the man back, the man with the kindly face and the winking eye.

"But she's alive, we have to call someone."

"And tell them what - you pushed her, knocking her sideways into a limestone outcrop and splitting her head open - and then you dragged her half a mile in the pouring rain - to bury her in deep woods in a shallow grave? Are you fucking mad, Thom?"

"I did not know she was alive, that changes everything... Fiona, Fiona can you hear me?" he bent closer, lowering his face to mine. "Fiona, I'm so sorry... just nod if you can hear me." I tried to nod, but my head wobbled all over the place, so instead I blinked. "She blinked, she can hear me." I blinked furiously, opening and closing my eyes again and again.

"Delayed reaction, she's probably having an epileptic fit - it's the last automatic reactions of the body before dying. I worked in a hospital, Thom, I've seen many people die."

"Blink twice if you can hear me," he insisted. I closed and opened my eyes, once and then again. This man, I didn't know who he was, but he clearly meant something to me. "There, she did it. Ruth, she's alive, and she's conscious. We have to do something."

"Not for long - she won't even last the night with a head injury like that. For fucks sake, don't be clueless. Fucking think, Thom. If you call an ambulance, what are you going to say? What if she talks? What if she tells them? That one can't keep a secret for thirty fucking seconds - you know she's pregnant, right? She told half the village before I put a lid on it."

"Pregnant?" the man gasped, a dreamy smile drifting across his face, before changing to concern, squeezing my hand again.

"Do you imagine she's going to keep her mouth shut about you braining her, and then half burying her?"

"It was your idea to bury her, Ruth, not mine." The man's kindly face twisted with pain, then he bent down and kissed my lips, then the tip of my nose, then each eyelid in turn, and then my forehead, but when he pulled away, his lips were stained red with blood, though he licked them clean. He must be my lover. No man would kiss me so tenderly, not even caring about my blood, unless he already shared my body fluids on a regular basis. So this was the man I loved. I was glad; he had a kind face. Whatever had happened, I would be safe.

"Do you think that really matters, when it gets in front of a jury, Thom? This is not something that is going to disappear with a little inquest like Vanessa did."

"That was your fault, not mine."

"Will you _ever_ let the guilt wash that blood out of my soul?"

I closed my eyes and lay back, not wanting to listen to them argue. Who was this woman? She was annoying, even the sound of her voice caused me pain. The pain was ebbing away, but I was so tired. I just wanted to sleep so badly.

"No, no, no, Fiona, stay with me," he begged, squeezing my hand so sharply that I opened my eyes again.

"Let her go. It's for the best. Think about it. Think about that beautiful house. Think about those beautiful children. Think about your band. Do you think you'll have any career at all left if this gets out? You can kiss all of that goodbye, they won't let you see your children if you're condemned to Broadmoor for attempted murder."

"I don't care," sobbed my lover. "I don't care about any of that. I just want her to live. I don't care about the money, the lifestyle, any of that shit. I just want her to live. The children... oh god, the children - they will grow up without me, they will see me when I get out, but I just fucking want her to live. Fiona, I love you. Please live."

Slowly realisation dawned across my fuzzy head. I was dying, was that it? Was that why I couldn't feel my legs? I tried to lift my head, then realised that the entire lower half of my body was covered with mud and sand and gravel. Was I dying? The thought should have made me panic, but I felt only a deep peace, like a puzzle had been solved. I squeezed my lover's hand, not very hard, but enough for him to feel it, because he bent in closer. I had to tell him it was alright. With great effort, I forced my lips to move, though I could barely find the oxygen in my lungs to form words. "I..." It came out a hiss, but he heard it.

"No, don't try to talk. Just hold on, save your energy. Ruth, for fucks sake, don't just sit there, run back to the house and get them to call a helicopter ambulance."

I tried to shake my head, but a stream of something warm and sticky ran down my face. I had to tell him. "No," I croaked. "Thom." That was his name. My lover. "Thom, I..." I took a shallow, wheezing breath and tried to force it through my vocal chords. "I love you."

"Jesus Christ, Fi, I always knew you would. For fucks sake, Ruth, fetch someone! There's still time." His face screwed up, twisted with anger and pain, he turned to the cruel looking woman and bellowed. "Run!"

But Ruth had stood up. She was holding a spade, a rusted, blunt-looking instrument that looked like it came from someone's garden. "I'm sorry. I can't let you do this, Thom. It can't come out. I can't let you throw _my_ lifestyle away. Take this. Finish it."

"No."

"Oh, for fucks sake, Thom, do I have to do everything myself?" She raised the shovel high, and then she swung.


End file.
